LIBRARY 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF 
 CALIFORNIA 
 SAN DftGO
 
 WOMAN AND 
 THE REPUBLIC 
 
 A SURVEY OF THE WOMAN-SUFFRAGE 
 MOVEMENT IN THE UNITED STATES 
 AND A DISCUSSION OF THE CLAIMS 
 AND ARGUMENTS OF ITS FOREMOST 
 ADVOCATES ::::::::: BY 
 HELEN KENDRICK JOHNSON" 
 
 NEW YORK 
 D. APPLETON AND COMPANY 
 
 M DCCCXCVII
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1897, 
 BY D. APPLETON AND COMPANY.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 INTRODUCTORY 5 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 Is WOMAN SUFFRAGE DEMOCRATIC ? 10 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 WOMAN SUFFRAGE AND THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC 39 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 WOMAN SUFFRAGE AND PHILANTHROPY 106 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 WOMAN SUFFRAGE AND THE LAWS 156 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 WOMAN SUFFRAGE AND THE TRADES 186 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 WOMAN SUFFRAGE AND THE PROFESSIONS 210 
 
 CHAPTER VIH. 
 WOMAN SUFFRAGE AND EDUCATION 223 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 WOMAN SUFFRAGE AND THE CHURCH. . . 246
 
 4 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 PACK 
 
 WOMAN SUFFRAGE AND SEX 278 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 WOMAN SUFFRAGE AND THE HOME 802 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 CONCLUSION. . . 820
 
 WOMAN AND THE REPUBLIC. 
 
 CHAPTEK I. 
 
 INTRODUCTORY. 
 
 THE introduction to the " History of Woman 
 Suffrage," published in 1881-85, edited by Eliza- 
 beth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony and Ma- 
 tilda Joslyn Gage, contains the following state- 
 ment : " It is often asserted that, as woman has 
 always been man's slave, subject, inferior, de- 
 pendent, under all forms of government and re- 
 ligion, slavery must be her normal condition ; but 
 that her condition is abnormal is proved by the 
 marvellous change in her character, from a toy 
 in the Turkish harem, or a drudge in the Geramn 
 fields, to a leader of thought in the literary cir- 
 cles of France, England, and America." 
 
 I have made this quotation partly on account 
 of its direct application to the subject to be dis- 
 cussed, and partly to illustrate the contradictions 
 that seem to inhere in the arguments on which 
 the claim to "Woman Suffrage is founded. If 
 woman has become a leader of thought in the 
 
 literary circles of the most cultivated lands, she 
 
 o
 
 6 WOMAN AND THE REPUBLIC. 
 
 has not always been man's slave, subject, inferior, 
 dependent, under all forms of government and 
 religion ; and, furthermore, it is not true that 
 there has been such a marvellous change in her 
 character as is implied in this statement. Where 
 man is a bigot and a barbarian, there, alas! 
 woman is still a harem toy ; where man is little 
 more than a human clod, woman is to-day a 
 drudge in the field ; where man has hewn the 
 way to governmental and religious freedom, there 
 woman has become a leader of thought. The 
 unity of race progress is strikingly suggested by 
 this fact. The method through which that unity 
 is maintained should unfold itself as we study 
 the story of the sex advancement of our time.^ 
 
 Progress is a magic word, and the Suffrage 
 party has been fortunate in its attempt to invoke 
 the sorcery of the thought that it enfolds, and to 
 blend it with the claim of woman to share in the 
 public duty of voting. Possession of the elective 
 franchise is a symbol of power in man's hand ; 
 why should it not bear the same relation to 
 woman's upward impulse and action? Modern 
 adherents ask, " Is not the next new force at hand 
 in our social evolution to come from the en- 
 trance of woman upon the political arena ? " The 
 roots of these questions, and consequently of 
 their answers, lie as deep as the roots of being, 
 and they cannot be laid bare by superficial dig- 
 ging. But the laying bare of roots is not the 
 only way, or even the best way, to judge of the
 
 INTRODUCTORY. 7 
 
 strength and beauty of a growth. "We look at 
 the leaves, the flowers, and the fruit. " Move- 
 ment " and " Progress " are not synonymous 
 terms. In evolution there is degeneration as well 
 as regeneration. Only the work that has been 
 in accord with the highest ideals of woman's 
 nature is fitted to the environment of its advance, 
 and thus to survival and development. In order 
 to learn whether Woman Suffrage is in the line 
 of advance, we must know whether the move- 
 ment to obtain it has thus far blended itself with 
 those that have proved to be for woman's progress 
 and for the progress of government. 
 
 I am sure I need not emphasize the fact that, 
 in studying some of the principles that underlie 
 the Suffrage movement, I am not impugning the 
 motives of the leaders. Nor need I dwell upon 
 the fact that it is from the good comradeship of 
 men and women that has come to prevail under 
 our free conditions, that some women have 
 hastily espoused a cause with which they never 
 have affiliated, because they supposed it to be 
 fighting against odds for the freedom of their sex. 
 
 The past fifty years have wrought more change 
 in the conditions of life than could many a 
 Cathayan cycle. The growth of religious liberty, 
 enlargement of foreign and home missions, the 
 Temperance movement, the giant war waged for 
 principle, are among the causes of this change. 
 The settlement of the great West, the opening of 
 professions and trades to woman consequent upon
 
 8 WOMAN AND THE REPUBLIC. 
 
 the loss of more than a half million of the nation's 
 most stalwart men, the mechanical inventions 
 that have changed home and trade conditions, 
 the sudden advance of science, the expansion of 
 mind and of work that are fostered by the play 
 of a free government, all these have tended to 
 place man and woman, but especially woman, 
 where something like a new heaven and a new 
 earth are in the distant vision. 
 
 To this change the Suffragists call attention, 
 and say, " This is, in great part, our work." In 
 this little book I shall recount a few of the facts 
 that, in my opinion, go to prove that the Suffrage 
 movement has had but little part or lot in this 
 matter. And because of these facts I believe the 
 principles on which the claim to suffrage is 
 founded are those that turn individuals and 
 nations backward and not forward. 
 
 The first proof I shall mention is the latest 
 one in time it is the fact of an Anti-Suffrage 
 movement. In the political field alone are we 
 being formed into separate camps whose watch- 
 words become more unlike as they become 
 more clearly understood. The fact that for the 
 first time in our history representatives of two 
 great organizations of women are appealing to 
 courts and legislatures, each begging them to 
 refuse the prayer of the other, shows, as conclu- 
 sively as a long argument could do, that this 
 matter of suffrage is something essentially dis- 
 tinct from the great series of movements in which
 
 INTRODUCTORY. 9 
 
 women thus far have advanced side by side. It 
 is an instinctive announcement of a belief that 
 the demand for suffrage is" not progress ; that it 
 does array sex against sex; that woman, like 
 man, can advance only as the race advances ; 
 and that here lies the dividing line. 
 
 How absolute is that dividing line between 
 woman's progress and woman suffrage, we may 
 realize when we consider what the result would 
 be if we could know to-morrow, beyond a perad- 
 venture, that woman never would vote in the 
 United States. Not one of her charities, great or 
 small, would be crippled. Not a woman's college 
 would close its doors. Not a profession would 
 withhold its diploma from her ; not a trade its 
 recompense. Not a single just law would be re- 
 pealed, or a bad one framed, as a consequence. Not 
 a good book would be forfeited. Not a family 
 would be less secure of domestic happiness. Not 
 a single hope would die which points to a time 
 when our cities will all be like those of the pro- 
 phet's vision, " first pure and then peaceable." 
 
 Among the forces that are universally con- 
 sidered progressive are : the democratic idea in 
 government, extinction of slavery, increase of 
 educational and industrial opportunities for 
 woman, improvement in the statute laws, and 
 spread of religious freedom. The "Woman-Suf- 
 frage movement professed to champion these 
 causes. That movement is now nearly fifty years 
 old, and has made a record by which its relation 
 to them can be judged. What is the verdict ?
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 IS WOMAN SUFFRAGE DEMOCRATIC ? 
 
 As the claim of woman to share the voting 
 power is related to the fundamental principles of 
 government, the progress of government must 
 be studied in relation to that claim in order 
 to learn its bearing upon them. It is possible to 
 suggest in one brief chapter only the barest out- 
 line of such a far-reaching scrutiny, and wiser 
 heads than mine must search to conclusion ; but 
 some beginnings looking toward an answer to 
 the inquiry I have raised have occurred to me as 
 not having entered into the newly-opened con- 
 troversy on woman suffrage. 
 
 I say, the newly-opened controversy, for, 
 through these fifty years, the Suffragists have 
 done nearly all the talking. So persistently have 
 they laid claim to being in the line of progress 
 for woman, that many of their newly aroused 
 opponents fancied that the anti-suffrage view 
 might be the ultra conservative one, and that 
 democratic principles, strictly and broadly applied, 
 might at last lead to woman suffrage, though 
 premature if pushed to a conclusion now. 
 10
 
 18 WOMAN SUFFRAGE DEMOCRATIC? 11 
 
 The first step in finding out how far that posi- 
 tion is true is, to ascertain what the Suffragists 
 say about this noblest of democracies, our own 
 Government. In referring to the " The History 
 of Woman Suffrage " for the opinions of the 
 leaders, I am not only using a book that on its 
 publication was considered a strong and full pre- 
 sentment of their arguments, but one which they 
 are to-day advertising and selling as " a perfect 
 arsenal of the work done by and for women dur- 
 ing the last half century." In it the editors say : 
 " Woman's political equality with man is the 
 legitimate outgrowth of the fundamental principles , 
 of our government." Dr. Mary Putnam Jacobi, 
 writing in the New York Sun in April, 1894, 
 says : " Never, until the establishment of universal 
 [male] suffrage, did it happen that all the women 
 in a community, no matter how well born, how 
 intelligent, how well educated, how virtuous, how 
 wealthy, were counted the political inferiors of 
 all the men, no matter how base born, how stupid, 
 how ignorant, how brutal, how poverty-stricken. 
 This anomaly is the real innovation. Men have 
 personally ruled the women of their families; 
 the law has annihilated the separate existence of 
 women; but women have never been subjected 
 to the political sovereignty of all men simply in 
 virtue of their sex. Never, that is, since the days 
 of the ancient republics." Mrs. Ellen Battelle 
 Dietrick, who, as Secretary of the New-England 
 Suffrage Association, was put forward to meet all
 
 12 WOMAN AND THE REPUBLIC. 
 
 comers, writing in July, 1895, said : " Shall we, 
 as a people, be true to our principles and en- 
 franchise woman ? or, shall we drift along in the 
 meanest form of oligarchy known among men 
 an oligarchy which exalts every sort of a male 
 into a ruler simply because he is a male, and de- 
 bases every woman into a subject simply because 
 she is a woman ? " Mrs. Fanny B. Ames, speak- 
 ing in Boston in 1896, said : " I believe woman 
 suffrage to be the final result of the evolution of 
 a true democracy." Not only has every woman 
 speaker or writer in favor of suffrage presented 
 this idea in some form, but the men also who 
 have taken that side have done likewise. One 
 among those who advocated the cause before the 
 Committee in the Constitutional Convention of 
 New York, said: "Woman Suffrage is the in- 
 evitable result of the logic of the situation of 
 modern society. The despot who first yielded 
 an inch of power gave up the field. We are 
 standing in the light of the best interests of the 
 State of New York when we stand in the way 
 of this forward movement." 
 
 All these writers charge the American Kepub- 
 lic with being false to democratic principles in 
 excluding women from the franchise, while but 
 one of them alludes to the fact that in the ancient 
 republics the same " anomaly " was seen. 
 
 As I read political history, the facts go to show 
 that the fundamental principles of our Govern- 
 ment are more opposed to the exercise of suffrage
 
 IS WOMAN SUFFRAGE DEMOCRATIC f 13 
 
 by women than are those of monarchies. To me it 
 seems that both despotism and anarchy are more 
 friendly to woman's political aspirations than is 
 any form of constitutional government, and that 
 manhood suffrage, and not womanhood suffrage, 
 is the final result of the evolution of democracy. 
 
 The Suffragists repeatedly call attention to the 
 fact that in the early ages in Egypt, in Greece, 
 and in Rome, women were of much greater polit- 
 ical consequence than later during the republics; 
 but the moral they have drawn has been that of 
 the superiority of the ancient times. Mrs. Diet- 
 rick says : " The ideal woman of Greece was 
 Athena, patroness of all household arts and indus- 
 tries, but equally patroness of all political inter- 
 ests. The greatest city of Greece was believed to 
 have been founded by her, and Greek history 
 recorded that, though the men citizens voted 
 solidly to have the city named for Neptune, yet 
 the women citizens voted solidly for Athena, beat 
 them by one vote, and carried that political mat- 
 ter. If physical force had been a governing 
 power in Greece, and men its manifestation, how 
 could such a story have been published by Greek 
 men down to the second century before our era ? " 
 
 Mrs. Dietrick's remarkably realistic version of 
 the old myth does not tell the tale as Greek men 
 published it. Yarro, who was educated at Ath- 
 ens, goes on to say : " Thereupon, Neptune be- 
 came enraged, and immediately the sea flowed 
 over all the land of Athens. To appease the god,
 
 14 WOMAN AND THE REPUBLIC. 
 
 the burgesses were compelled to impose a three- 
 fold punishment uppn their wives they were to 
 lose their votes ; the children were to receive no 
 more the mother's name ; and they themselves 
 were no longer to be called Athenians, after the 
 goddess." It seems to me this fable teaches that 
 physical force was indeed the governing power in 
 Athens at that day, and that men were its mani- 
 festation. 
 
 The legend is generally taken to indicate the 
 time when the Greek gens progressed to the fam- 
 ily. In the ruder time, the legitimacy of the 
 chieftain might be traced, because the mother, 
 though not always the father, could be known with 
 certainty. When the father became the acknowl- 
 edged head of the household, a distinct advance 
 was made toward that heroic age in which the 
 vague but towering figures of men and women 
 move across the stage. Goddesses, queens, prin- 
 cesses, are powerful in love and war. Sibyls un- 
 fold the meaning of the book of fate. Vestals 
 feed the fires upon the highest and lowest 
 altars. Later, throughout most of the states of 
 Greece, something like the following order of 
 political life is seen: from kings to oligarchs, 
 from oligarchs to tyrants or despots, from them 
 to some form of restricted constitutional liberty. 
 In Sparta, all change of government was con- 
 trolled by the machinery of war, and the soldiers 
 were made forever free. Athens, separated from 
 the rest of Greece, was less agitated by outward
 
 IS WOMAN SUFFRAGE DEMOCRATIC? 15 
 
 conflict. In government she passed from king to 
 archon ; from hereditary archon to archons chosen 
 for ten years, but always from one family, then 
 to those elected for one year, nine being chosen. 
 At the time of the Areopagus there were four 
 classes of citizens. The first three paid taxes, had 
 a right to share in the government, and formed 
 the defence of the state. If women were of polit- 
 ical importance in earlier times, and if a repub- 
 lic is more favorable to the exercise by them of 
 the elective franchise, we should expect to find 
 women reaching their highest power under the 
 Areopagus. Exactly the contrary appears to be 
 true. Native and honorable Greek women retired 
 to domestic life as the liberty of their people 
 grew. Grote, in his " History of Greece," refer- 
 ring to the legendary period, says : " We find the 
 wife occupying a station of great dignity and 
 influence, though it was the practice of the hus- 
 band to purchase her by valuable presents to her 
 parents. She even seems to live less secluded, 
 and to enjoy a wider sphere of action, than was 
 allotted to her in historic Greece." 
 
 Lecky, in his "European Morals," says: "It 
 is one of the most remarkable and, to some writ- 
 ers, one of the most perplexing facts in the moral 
 history of Greece, that in the former and ruder 
 period women had undoubtedly the highest place, 
 and their type exhibited the highest perfection." 
 What the " highest perfection " is, for her type, 
 or for man's type, is not here under discussion ;
 
 16 WOMAN AND THE REPUBLIC. 
 
 but it is not out of place to say in passing that if 
 the final conquest of the spiritual over the mate- 
 rial forces of humanity is really the aim of civil- 
 ization, these " facts in the moral history of 
 Greece " become less " perplexing." 
 
 The heroines of Homer's tales were all of noble 
 birth they were goddesses, princesses, hereditary 
 gentlewomen. In early historic times, also, it 
 was only royal or gentle blood that secured for 
 woman political power. Athena was, in gentle 
 Athens, patroness of household arts ; but in 
 Sparta, as Minerva, the same divinity was god- 
 dess, not of political interests, as Mrs. Dietrick 
 puts it, but of war. She sprang full-armed from 
 the head of Jove rather a masculine origin, it 
 must be owned. In Sparta women became 
 soldiers as the democratic idea advanced. Prin- 
 cess Archidamia, marching at the head of her 
 female troop to rebuke the senators for the decree 
 that the women and children be removed from 
 the city before the anticipated attack could come, 
 is an example. In Etolia, in Argos, and in other 
 states, the same was true. Maria and Telesilla 
 led the women in battle and disciplined them in 
 peace. But the world does not turn to Sparta 
 for its ideal of a pre-Christian republic, and the 
 Suffragists of our day do not propose to emulate 
 the Spartan Amazon and hew their way to polit- 
 ical power with the sword. 
 
 In Athens, which does present the model, mat- 
 ters were far otherwise. In the year 700 B. C.,
 
 IS WOMAN SUFFRAGE DEMOCRATIC? 17 
 
 the Spartans called upon Athens for a com- 
 mander to lead them to the second Messenian 
 war, and the Athenians sent them Tyrtaeus, their 
 martial poet. The Spartans were displeased at 
 his youth and gentle bearing; but when the 
 battle was joined, his chanting of his own war- 
 songs so animated the troops that they won 
 against heavy odds. The following is a fragment 
 translated from one of his lyrics : 
 
 " But be it ours to guard the hallowed spot, 
 
 To shield the tender offspring and the wife ; 
 Here steadily await our destined lot, 
 And, for their sakes, resign the gift of life." 
 
 ^Eschylus, poet and soldier, writing a hundred 
 and fifty years later, in his " Seven Against 
 Thebes," puts into the mouth of the chieftain 
 Eteocles this address to the women : 
 
 " It is not to be borne, ye wayward race ; 
 Is this your best, is this the aid you lend 
 The state, the fortitude with which you steel 
 The souls of the besieged, thus falling down 
 Before the images to wail, and shriek 
 With lamentations loud ? Wisdom abhors you. 
 Nor in misfortune, nor in dear success, 
 Be woman my associate. If her power 
 Bears sway, her insolence exceeds all bounds ; 
 But if she fears, woe to that house and city. 
 And now by holding counsel with weak fear, 
 You magnify the foe, and turn our men 
 To flight. Thus are we ruined by ourselves. 
 This ever will arise from suffering women 
 To intermix with men. But mark me well, 
 Whoe'er henceforth dares disobey my orders 
 2
 
 18 WOMAN AND THE REPUBLIC. 
 
 Be it man or woman, old or young 
 
 Vengeance shall burst upon him, the decree 
 
 Stands irreversible, and lie shall die. 
 
 War is no female province, but the scene 
 
 For men. Hence, home ! nor spread your mischiefs here. 
 
 Hear you, or not ? Or speak I to the deaf ? " 
 
 Pericles, in his famous funeral oration over 
 those who fell in the Peloponnesian war, thus 
 addresses the Athenian women : " To the wives 
 who will henceforth live in widowhood, I will 
 speak, in one short sentence only, of womanly 
 virtue. She is the best woman who is most truly 
 a woman, and her reputation is the highest whose 
 name is never in the mouths of men for good or 
 for evil." 
 
 Seclusion was the best thing that the most in- 
 tellectual pre-Christian republic could give to its 
 honorable women. The freedom with which the 
 hetaira3, who were foreigners or daughters of 
 slaves, mingled with statesmen and philosophers, 
 brought them open political influence, but not a 
 hint of voting power or of office-holding. 
 
 For the sake of brevity, I will confine my refer- 
 ence to Roman custom to a single pregnant sen- 
 tence from Gibbon's " Decline and Fall of the 
 Empire." He says : " In every age and country 
 the wiser, or at least the stronger of the two sexes, 
 has usurped the powers of the state, and confined 
 the other to the cares and pleasures of domestic 
 life. In hereditary monarchies, however, and 
 especially in those of modern Europe, the gallant
 
 IS WOMAN SUFFRAGE DEMOCRATIC? 19 
 
 spirit of chivalry, and the law of succession, have 
 accustomed us to allow a singular exception, and 
 a woman is often acknowledged the absolute 
 sovereign of a great kingdom, in which she would 
 be deemed incapable of exercising the smallest 
 employment, civil or military. But, as the Koman 
 Emperors were still considered as the generals 
 and magistrates of the Republic, their wives and 
 mothers, although dignified by the name of 
 Augusta, were never associated to their personal 
 honors ; and a female reign would have appeared 
 an inexplicable prodigy in the eyes of those primi- 
 tive Romans, who married without love, or loved 
 without delicacy or respect." 
 
 The warlike states named republics in the 
 Middle Ages had no woman Doge, or Duke, al- 
 though women rose to the semblance of political 
 power with empires and kingdoms, in Italy and 
 Spain as well as in Germany and France, Austria 
 and Russia. 
 
 Let us turn to modern Europe, in which thrones 
 have been occupied now and again by queens. 
 The progress of woman here, especially in Anglo- 
 Saxon countries, has been steady, true and in- 
 spiring. In the earliest recorded councils of the 
 race from which we sprang, we see freemen in 
 full armor casting equal votes. During the ages 
 of feudalism, women who were land-owners had 
 the same rights as other nobles. They could 
 raise soldiery, coin money, and administer justice 
 in both civil and criminal proceedings. In pro-
 
 20 WOMAN AND THE REPUBLIC. 
 
 portion as the aristocratic power lost its hold, 
 women were exempted from these services and 
 gained in moral influence. The Germanic races 
 were renowned for their respect for woman, and 
 their love for home. As constitutional liberty 
 grew, and each Englishman's house became his 
 castle for defence against arbitrary power, the 
 protection was not for himself but for his family. 
 A figure-head ruler in feminine attire sits on 
 England's throne to-day the England that still 
 unites its church and state, and in which feudal 
 customs still prevail to some extent. Widows 
 and spinsters who are property-owners can vote 
 for all offices except the one charged under the 
 Constitution with the framing and execution of 
 the laws of the land. Aristocracy decrees that 
 in the House of Lords the Bishops shalL have a 
 voice ; but in the House of Commons no clergy- 
 man can hold a seat, and for members of Parlia- 
 ment no woman votes. Would any Suffragist 
 hold that a clergyman was the inferior of men 
 who do sit in the House of Commons? They 
 are excluded for the same reason that woman has 
 not the parliamentary vote they are looked upon 
 as non-combatants. 
 
 The Greek and Roman republics appear to have 
 followed an instinct that was unerring in the 
 condition of society when they removed women 
 from the seats of power as the commonwealth 
 gathered strength. Gibbon, in the sentences 
 quoted, attributes the fact that queens as well as
 
 IS WOMAN SUFFRAGE DEMOCRATIC? 21 
 
 kings have occupied the thrones of modern Europe 
 to the chivalry of men toward those who would 
 yet be incapable of exercising actual power except 
 for the backing of a standing army, or an hered- 
 itary nobility sworn to their support, both of 
 which are composed solely of men. If this be 
 true, it should be visible in the workings of the con- 
 stitutional restrictions upon monarchies that have 
 developed in the past fifty years, during which the 
 principle of democratic government has advanced 
 with enormous strides over a great portion of the 
 globe. 
 
 In the Austro-Hungarian monarchy there is 
 restricted woman suffrage. The kingdom of 
 Italy has restricted municipal woman suffrage. 
 The little republic that separates those countries, 
 the land of Tell and the Yaudois, has direct man- 
 hood suffrage only. 
 
 Sweden and Norway are apparently parting 
 company. Sweden chooses to keep its king and 
 its aristocracy, and it has restricted woman suf- 
 frage; but Norway, which is working toward 
 free institutions, and last year voted to remove 
 the insignia of union from the Norwegian flag, 
 has no woman suffrage.* 
 
 * In the city of Berne, Switzerland, in 1852, a proxy vote 
 was given to independent women who paid a commercial 
 tax, but they made no effort to use it until 1885, when con- 
 tending political factions compelled them to do so in a 
 measure. Norway's women have a local school vote. Both 
 these cases of exception serve to prove the rule that I am 
 trying to set forth.
 
 22 WOMAN AND THE REPUBLIC. 
 
 Autocratic Russia and its Asiatic colonies have 
 more woman suffrage than England. Finland, a 
 constitutional monarchy, was ceded to the Em- 
 peror of Russia in 1809. Women there have all ex- 
 cept the parliamentary suffrage. The Governor- 
 General of the Senate is nominated by the Emperor, 
 and is chief of the military force. The National 
 Assembly is convoked by the Emperor whenever 
 he sees fit. The duties of that Assembly are to 
 consider laws proposed by the Emperor and 
 elaborated by the Committee of Affairs and four 
 members nominated by the Emperor, who sit in 
 St. Petersburg. The Emperor has the veto power 
 over any act of theirs. That National Assembly 
 consists of representatives of the nobility, the 
 clergy, the burghers, and the peasantry, the con- 
 sent of all of whom must be obtained to any 
 measure that makes a change in the constitution 
 or imposes taxes. But the royal veto can set 
 aside any decision. 
 
 Iceland, a dependency of Denmark, has muni- 
 cipal woman suffrage, and women are eligible to 
 municipal office. It has its own legislature, which 
 governs jointly with the King, the executive 
 poAver being in the hands of the King alone. 
 
 In the great extensions of suffrage in England 
 in 1848, an amendment for the extension of suf- 
 frage to women was introduced in Parliament by 
 Mr. Disraeli. Lord Northcote, Lord John Man- 
 ners, and other conservatives, upheld it ; but the 
 liberal leaders opposed it, Gladstone and John
 
 IS WOMAN SUFFRAGE DEMOCRATIC? 23 
 
 Bright among them. John Bright's family 
 were strenuous for the movement, and he had 
 fancied himself its friend until the issue came ; 
 then the old champion of freedom proved true to 
 the instinct that guards it in the nation. In the 
 constantly increasing liberty of the lower classes 
 of England, an essential principle which excludes 
 women from the parliamentary vote has been 
 maintained. Lady Spencer Churchill and other 
 Suffrage leaders look to Yiscount Templeton and 
 Lord Salisbury for support to-day. 
 
 A woman-suffrage bill of many years' standing 
 and absurd provisions, has just passed to a second 
 reading in the House of Commons. Although it 
 was treated as a joke by all parties, it served to 
 emphasize the fact that Sir Yernon Harcourt and 
 the Liberals are opposed to any advance in this 
 direction. 
 
 In the late extension of suffrage in Canada, the 
 movement for woman suffrage had conservative 
 support, while every liberal leader opposed it. 
 ~No South American Eepublic has woman suffrage. 
 "With the deposition of Liliuokalani, woman's direct 
 political power in the Hawaiian Islands died. In 
 France only the Anarchists " admit women " 
 to public council, and that party in Germany has 
 here and there inscribed woman suffrage upon its 
 banners. 
 
 Not only England, Scotland and Wales, but 
 Canada, definitely excepts the vote for members 
 of parliament in giving suffrage to woman, and
 
 24 WOMAN AND THE REPUBLIC. 
 
 only widows and spinsters are admitted to the 
 minor forms of franchise. As to the other British 
 colonies, what is the situation ? Much stress has 
 been laid on what has been termed the progress 
 of the Suffrage movement in Australasia. 
 There is but one Australian colony in which the 
 legislative assembly is elected ; in the others it is 
 appointed for life, or for short terms. "Where it 
 is thus appointed, women vote on various matters. 
 In Yictoria, which contains the capital city, Mel- 
 bourne, and which is the most progressive and 
 democratic colony in Australia, the Legislative 
 Assembly is elected, and that body is chosen by 
 unrestricted male suffrage only, while, as with 
 the House of Commons in the mother country, 
 clergymen are not allowed to sit in it. In West 
 Australia, the newest colony, the voting is done 
 by men alone. In Cape Colony women have re- 
 stricted municipal suffrage ; but the Assembly is 
 elected by the vote of men who own a certain 
 amount of property. 
 
 In the Orange Free State every adult white 
 male is a full burgher, having a vote for the Pres- 
 ident, who is chosen for five years. The Trans- 
 vaal Republic has no woman suffrage amid its 
 hand-to-hand struggles. 
 
 To comprehend the condition of European gov- 
 ernmental affairs, one must follow the condition 
 of things produced by the struggle of socialistic 
 and anarchistic elements. Between the King on 
 the one hand, and these forces on the other, the
 
 IS WOMAN SUFFRAGE DEMOCRATIC? 25 
 
 true Liberal parties are slowly progressing toward 
 free institutions ; both aristocratic and anarchistic 
 movements being more favorable than liberalism to 
 woman-suffrage aspirations. 
 
 The countries where woman has full suffrage 
 (save in the United States) are all dependencies of 
 royalty. They are : The Isle of Man, Pitcairn's 
 Island, New Zealand, and South Australia. The 
 most important of these, New Zealand, was once 
 a promising colony, but it has been declining for 
 a quarter of a century. The men outnumber the 
 women by forty thousand. The act conferring 
 the parliamentary franchise on both European and 
 Maori women received the royal sanction in 1892. 
 At the session of Parliament that passed the act 
 a tax was put upon incomes and one upon land, 
 so that a desperate civilization seemed to be trying 
 all the experiments at once. Certainly, woman 
 suffrage in New Zealand was not adopted because 
 the Government was so stable, so strong, so demo- 
 cratic, that these conditions must thus find fit ex- 
 pression.* 
 
 South Australia not only gives women full suf- 
 frage, but makes them eligible to a seat in Parlia- 
 ment. The colony is a vast, mountainous, largely 
 unsettled region, with a high proportion of native 
 
 * The Australasian colonies are taking steps toward the 
 formation of a Federal Union. While this book is in press 
 news comes that the Federal Convention, by a vote of 23 to 12, 
 has refused to allow women to vote for members of the House 
 of Representatives.
 
 26 WOMAN AND THE REPUBLIC. 
 
 and Chinese, and, in 1894, had but 73,000 voters, 
 including the women. The Socialistic Labor 
 movement, which has played a large part in 
 Australasian politics, here succeeded in dominat- 
 ing the government. There was an attempt to 
 establish communistic villages with public money, 
 a proposal to divide the public money pro rata, 
 and one to build up a system of state life-insur- 
 ance ; and taxes were to be levied on salaries, and 
 on all incomes above a certain point. It was 
 found that the sixty thousand women who were 
 authorized to vote throughout Australia assisted 
 the socialistic schemes that are hindering progress 
 and that tend to anarchy and not to republican- 
 ism. There is a royal Governor, and suffrage is 
 based on household and property qualifications. 
 It is an aristocratic and social combination, not a 
 triumph of democratic ideas or principles. Dr. 
 Jacobi, in her " Common Sense applied to Woman 
 Suffrage," says : " The refusal to extend parlia- 
 mentary suffrage to women who are possessed of 
 municipal suffrage, does not mean, as Americans 
 are apt to suppose, that women are counted able 
 to judge about the small concerns of a town, but 
 not about imperial issues. It means that women 
 are still not counted able to exercise independent 
 judgment at all, and, therefore, are to remain 
 counted out when this is called for ; but that the 
 property to which, they happen to belong, and 
 which requires representation, must not be de- 
 prived of this on account of an entangling female
 
 IS WOMAN SUFFRAGE DEMOCRATIC? 27 
 
 alliance. This is the very antipodes of the demo- 
 cratic doctrine, perhaps also somewhat excessive, 
 that a man requires representation so much that 
 he must not be deprived of it on account of the 
 accident of not being able to read or write ! " 
 
 With Dr. Jacobi's interpretation, I will deal 
 later. "What I wish now to do is, to call attention 
 to her admission of the fact that woman suffrage 
 in England and in her colonies is not democratic, 
 and to connect it with the other fact that no re- 
 public, from that of Greece to our own, has intro- 
 duced it, although manhood suffrage has been 
 universal in Switzerland for many years, and in 
 France since 1848. 
 
 So it would seem that under a monarchical 
 system, with a standing army and a hereditary 
 nobility to support the throne, the royal mandate 
 could be issued by a woman. Any Queen, as 
 well as the one that Alice met in "Wonderland, 
 could say, " Off with his head ! " But when free- 
 dom grew, and the democratic idea began to pre- 
 vail, and each individual man became a king, and 
 each home a castle, the law given by God and not 
 by man came into exercise, and upon each man 
 was laid the duty of defending liberty and those 
 who were physically unfitted to defend them- 
 selves. 
 
 Let us turn now to our own country. Tech- 
 nically, at least, women possessed the suffrage 
 in our first settlements. In New England, in 
 the early days, when church-membership as the
 
 28 WOMAN AND THE REPUBLIC. 
 
 basis of the franchise excluded three-fourths of 
 the male inhabitants from its exercise, women 
 could vote. Under the old Provincial charters, 
 from 1691 to 1780, they could vote for all elective 
 offices. From 1780 to 1785, under the Articles 
 of Confederation, they could vote for all elective 
 offices except the Governor, the Council, and the 
 Legislature. The comment made upon this by 
 the Suffrage writers is, that " the fact that woman 
 exercised the right of suffrage amid so many 
 restrictions, is very significant of the belief in her 
 right to the ballot-box." My comment is, that 
 the same lesson we have learned in Europe is 
 repeated here with wonderful emphasis. Under 
 the transported aristocracy of churchly power in 
 the state, they shared the undemocratic rule. 
 When freedom broadened a little, and, under a 
 system that still acknowledged allegiance to the 
 British Crown, all property-holders or other " duly 
 qualified " colonists could vote, they still had the 
 voice that England grants to-day, the voice of an 
 estate. "When liberty took another step and a 
 league was formed of " firm friendship " in which 
 each Colony was to be independent and yet 
 banded for offensive and defensive aid, the women 
 were retired from the special vote on the result of 
 which lay the actual execution of the law. But 
 this country was not yet a republic, or even a 
 nation. Washington himself said that the state 
 of things under the Articles of Confederation 
 was hardly removed from anarchy. In 1789 a
 
 18 WOMAN SUFFRAGE DEMOCRATIC? 29 
 
 constitution was adopted, which made the Amer- 
 ican people a nation. Its preamble read : " We, 
 the people of the United States, in order to form 
 a more perfect union, establish justice, insure 
 domestic tranquillity, provide for the common 
 defence, promote- the general welfare, and secure 
 the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our pos- 
 terity, do ordain and establish this Constitution 
 for the United States of America." Under this 
 Constitution the last vestiges of churchly political 
 rule, and of property-qualification for voting, have 
 gradually disappeared. New Jersey was the last 
 State to repeal her property-qualification laws. 
 In 1709 she made " male freeholders " who held a 
 certain amount of property the only voters. In 
 1790 her Constitution, through an error in word- 
 ing, admitted " all inhabitants " with certain 
 property to vote. This was in force until 1807, 
 when an act was passed conferring the suffrage 
 upon " free white male citizens twenty-one years 
 of age worth fifty pounds proclamation money, 
 clear estate," etc. From 1790 to 1807 a good 
 many women, generally from the Society of 
 Friends, took part in elections. After 1807 they 
 attempted to do so, as owners of property. Fi- 
 nally, that qualification for the male voter was 
 done away with, and Avith it the woman-suffrage 
 agitation disappeared. 
 
 State after State, in carrying out the compact 
 of the Federal Republic, had inserted the word 
 " male " into the Constitutions that embodied the
 
 30 WOMAN AND THE REPUBLIC. 
 
 American conception of a more vital and endur- 
 ing freedom. 
 
 But there are now four States of the Union 
 where women have full suffrage, a few where 
 they have a measure of municipal suffrage, and 
 many where they nave the school suffrage. What 
 bearing do these facts have upon my claim that 
 woman suffrage is undemocratic ? 
 
 The States where they have full suffrage are 
 Utah, Wyoming, Colorado, and Idaho. How far 
 was its introduction into these States the result 
 of advanced legislation in accord with true repub- 
 licanism ? Utah Territory was the first spot in 
 the country in which the measure gained a foot- 
 hold, and that was not believed by its intro- 
 ducers to be a part of the United States. The 
 Mormons who founded Salt Lake City supposed 
 themselves to be settling on Mexican territory, 
 outside the j urisdiction of American law. Woman 
 suffrage was almost coincident with its begin- 
 nings, and it came as a legitimate part of the 
 union of state and church, of communism, of 
 polygamy. The dangers that especially threaten 
 a republican form of government are anarchy, com- 
 munism, and religious bigotry ; and two of these 
 found their fullest expression, in this country, 
 in the Mormon creed and practice. Fealty to 
 Mormonism was disloyalty to the United States 
 Government. Thus, the introduction of woman 
 suffrage within our borders was not only undem- 
 ocratic, it was anti-democratic.
 
 IS WOMAN SUFFRAGE DEMOCRATIC f 31 
 
 Woman suffrage was secured in "Wyoming by 
 means that bring dishonor upon democracy. 
 Wyoming was organized as a Territory in 1868. 
 Many of its native settlers were from Utah. 
 For its vast, mountainous extent of nearly 98,000 
 square miles, the census gave a population of only 
 9,118 persons. Of these the native-born numbered 
 5,605, foreign-born, 3,513. The males numbered 
 7,219 ; the females, 1,899. The " History of 
 Woman Suffrage " records the fact that the meas- 
 ure was secured in the first Territorial legislature 
 through the political trickery of an illiterate and 
 discredited man, who was in the chair. Mr. 
 Bryce, in " The American Commonwealth," alludes 
 in a note to the same fact. Women voted in 1870. 
 In 1871 a bill was passed repealing the suffrage 
 act, but was vetoed by the Governor, on the 
 ground that, having been admitted, it must be 
 given a fair trial. An attempt to pass the repeal 
 over his veto was lost by a single vote. Cer- 
 tainly, the entrance of woman suffrage into 
 Wyoming was not a triumph of democratic pro- 
 gress and principle. 
 
 Colorado was admitted into the Union in 1876, 
 and great efforts were made by Suffragists to 
 secure the " Centennial" State. This resulted in 
 a submission of the question to the people, who 
 rejected it by a majority of 7,443 in a total vote 
 of 20,665. From the first of the agitation for the 
 free coinage of silver, Colorado has been enthu- 
 siastically in favor of that measure. In 1892
 
 32 WOMAN AND THE REPUBLIC. 
 
 her devotion to it caused all parties to unite on 
 that issue and gave tke vote of the State to Gen- 
 eral Weaver, Populist candidate for President, and 
 to David H. "Waite, Populist candidate for Gover- 
 nor. The question of woman suffrage was re-sub- 
 mitted to the people at this election, and the con- 
 stitutional amendment concerning it was carried 
 by a majority of only 5,000 in a total vote of 
 200,000. Neither that movement nor its results 
 present triumphant democracy. 
 
 In 1894 the Populist party of Idaho put a plank 
 in its platform favoring the submission of a 
 woman-suffrage amendment to the people. In 1896 
 the Free Silver Populist movement swept the State. 
 A majority of the votes cast on the Suffrage ques- 
 tion were cast in its favor, but not a majority of 
 all the votes cast at the election. The supreme 
 courts have generally held that, in so important 
 a matter, a complete majority vote was required, 
 but the Supreme Court of Idaho did not so hold, 
 and woman suffrage is now established in that 
 State. This, also, is hardly a success of sound 
 democracy. 
 
 The subject of woman suffrage has lately been 
 dealt with by two States that represent republican 
 progress at its best. They are New York and 
 Massachusetts. In the former State a Constitu- 
 tional Convention in 1894 gave an impartial hear- 
 ing to the subject, and decided not to submit to 
 the people an amendment striking the word " male" 
 from the State Constitution. Massachusetts at its
 
 IS WOMAN SUFFRAGE DEMOCRATIC? 33 
 
 State election in 1895 asked the people to vote 
 upon the question of extending municipal suffrage 
 to women, and the answer was given in a heavy 
 adverse majority. Fewer than four in one hun- 
 dred women qualified to vote on the subject voted 
 in its favor, and half a million women declined to 
 vote at all. A majority of over 100,000 votes was 
 cast against it by men. Utah and New York, 
 Wyoming and Massachusetts, which States do 
 Americans hold up as nearest their model ? In 
 which have women made most progress, and 
 showed themselves most likely to understand their 
 rights, privileges and duties ? 
 
 During the late Presidential election the issues 
 passed the boundary that separates party politics 
 from patriotic faith. For months preceding that 
 struggle the Suffrage body had conducted the 
 most efficient campaign in its history. When the 
 test came, California voted for sound money 
 against repudiation, for authority against anarchy, 
 by a small majority, and threw its ballots heavily 
 against woman suffrage. With the enthusiastic 
 help of its woman voters, Colorado gave its electo- 
 ral voice 16 to 1 against sound money and sound 
 Americanism. Which State can claim that its 
 action rings truest to the stroke of honest metal 
 in finance and in defence of national honor ? 
 
 A few States have extended municipal suffrage 
 
 to woman. It is generally local and restricted 
 
 Only in Kansas is there full municipal suffrage. 
 
 Dr. Jacobi, in her " Common Sense," says: 
 
 3
 
 34 WOMAN AND THE REPUBLIC. 
 
 " Municipal suffrage in Kansas demands no pro- 
 perty qualification, and its exercise therefore does 
 not differ in the least from that required in a 
 Presidential election." This is a mistake, for the 
 difference is essential and illustrates the undemo- 
 cratic character of woman suffrage. Municipal 
 suffrage in Kansas, like the Territorial suffrage in 
 Wyoming, was given by legislative act, and could 
 be done away with by another legislative act with- 
 out appeal to the people, or any change of the 
 Constitution. It did not touch the vital question 
 whether women, in a democracy, could form a 
 component part of the government. Mrs. Stan ton 
 well understood that difference. Kansas had long 
 possessed local municipal suffrage when, in 1894, 
 the question of granting full suffrage, by consti- 
 tutional amendment, was submitted to the people. 
 Mrs. Stanton then wrote : " My hope now rests 
 with Kansas. If that fails too, we must trust no 
 longer to the Republican and Democratic parties, 
 but henceforth give our money, our eloquence, 
 our enthusiasm to a People's party that will recog- 
 nize woman as an equal factor in a new civiliza- 
 tion." There was enough leaven of republicanism 
 working then to cause the old fighting-ground, 
 the free-soil State, to reject the amendment by a 
 popular majority of 35,000. To the " People's 
 Party " in Kansas woman suffrage may look for 
 the most striking illustration of its results. Where 
 municipal suffrage could be secured only by con- 
 stitutional enactment, and was so secured, it
 
 IS WOMAN SUFFRAGE DEMOCRATIC? 35 
 
 would differ merely in degree from presidential 
 suffrage ; but it never has been so secured in any 
 State except those that give full constitutional 
 suffrage. It is on a par with school suffrage, ex- 
 cept that legislative enactment extends the vote 
 to town and city matters. 
 
 The history of the school suffrage affords 
 another proof of the incompatibility of republi- 
 canism and constitutional suffrage for woman. 
 Dr. Jacobi recognizes the difference between 
 constitutional and school suffrage when she says : 
 " Women continually sign petitions for this 
 privilege, till startled by the discovery that it 
 also means something else. It means, however, 
 in the State of New York, according to the de- 
 cision of the Supreme Court, that woman can 
 only enjoy this privilege thoroughly if empowered 
 by constitutional amendment to vote for all offi- 
 cers as well as for school commissioners." The 
 States that have refused to comply with the 
 Suffragists' demand for the elective franchise, 
 the most progressive States, have been first to 
 grant school suffrage, under constitutional limits. 
 The twenty-seven odd States that grant school 
 suffrage have had different methods of dealing 
 with the question, because their laws differ, but 
 both the positive proof of its being granted, and 
 the negative proof of its being withheld, tell the 
 same story in regard to the fundamental principle 
 involved. This is shown strikingly in the situa- 
 tion in Kansas. Women have full municipal
 
 36 WOMAN AND THE REPUBLIC. 
 
 suffrage, and the Supreme Court of that State 
 decided that they could vote for school treasurer, 
 which was a charter office, but could not vote 
 for County Superintendent of Schools, because that 
 office was provided for in the Constitution. The 
 school suffrage may or may not have a property 
 qualification attached. That makes no difference. 
 The difference is the essential one between dele- 
 gated power and sovereign power. The States 
 differ so widely in their methods of dealing with 
 municipal as well as school legislation, that only 
 a study of the laws of each State will reveal the 
 situation. In Ohio, in 1895, for instance, the 
 Legislature passed a bill enabling women to vote 
 on a municipal tax-levy, which the courts held was 
 unconstitutional, while they granted votes on 
 license and other* local questions. 
 
 In answer to the question whether, in Massa- 
 chusetts, a woman could be a member of a school 
 committee, the Supreme Court returned the fol- 
 lowing decision in 1874 : " The Constitution con- 
 tains nothing relating to school committees ; the 
 office is created and regulated by statute ; and the 
 Constitution confers upon the General Court full 
 power and authority to name and settle annually, 
 or provide by fixed laws for naming and settling, 
 all civil officers within the Commonwealth the 
 election and constitution of whom are not in 
 the Constitution otherwise provided for. The 
 question is therefore answered in the affirma- 
 tive."
 
 IS WOMAN SUFFRAGE DEMOCRATIC ? 37 
 
 The Supreme Court of New York, in 1892, held 
 that " School Commissioners are constitutional 
 officers within Article II. part 1 of the Constitu- 
 tion, and consequently the law of 1892 giving 
 women the right to vote for them is void." The 
 case was that of Matilda Joslyn Gage. The 
 office of School Commissioner was created after 
 the adoption of the Constitution, and it was there- 
 fore urged that the Constitution did not bear 
 upon it ; but the Supreme Court further decided 
 that the law gave the Legislature the right to 
 appoint or to elect the Commissioner ; and as 
 they had decided -that the office should be elec- 
 tive, the women could not vote for that office. 
 They vote for district-school officers under various 
 local permissions or limitations. In a case brought 
 to decide the right of women to vote for County 
 Superintendent of Schools the Supreme Court of 
 Illinois, in 1893, held that, as the office was de- 
 signated in the Constitution as elective, women 
 could not vote for it. The decision further said. 
 " The votes for State Superintendent of Instruc- 
 tion, and County Superintendent, are provided 
 for by law, and the Legislature cannot change the 
 law. It may be that it is competent for the 
 Legislature to provide that women who are 
 citizens of the United States and over twenty-one 
 may vote at elections held for school directors 
 and other school officers not mentioned in the 
 Constitution." Later, the Supreme Court held 
 that women were entitled to vote for school
 
 88 WOMAN AND THE REPUBLIC. 
 
 trustees, as "no officer of the school district is 
 mentioned in the State Constitution." 
 
 The Supreme Court of Ohio, in 1894, held that 
 the provision of the act of April 24, 1894, con- 
 ferring upon women the right to vote at elec- 
 tions of certain school officers, is valid, such right 
 being within the legislative power to provide 
 for the establishment and maintenance of public 
 schools, and not within Article Y. part 1, of the 
 Constitution, which limits the right to male 
 citizens. Judge Shauck says : " The whole sub- 
 ject of the public schools is delegated to the As- 
 sembly. As the common-school organization is 
 wholly a creation of the Legislature, it is in the 
 power of the Legislature to determine the quali- 
 fications of an elector and office-holder in it." In 
 upholding his ruling, he cited similar decisions 
 from the Supreme Courts of Illinois, Kansas, 
 Nebraska, Massachusetts, Michigan, and Iowa. 
 
 This rapid survey suggests, it seems to me, that, 
 instead of being "a legitimate outgrowth of 
 the fundamental principles of our government," 
 woman suffrage is really incompatible with true 
 republican forms. Pre-civilized conditions, aris- 
 tocratic tendencies, the forces that would destroy 
 government these appear to be its natural allies. 
 We must study more closely its connection with 
 representative government the better to compre- 
 hend this portentous truth.
 
 CHAPTEE III. 
 
 WOMAN SUFFRAGE AND THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 
 
 THE writers of the "History of "Woman Suf- 
 frage " give the following account of the founding 
 of their Association. In July, 1848, Elizabeth 
 Cady Stanton, Lucretia Mott, Martha C. Wright, 
 and Ann McClintock issued an unsigned call for 
 a convention, which was asked to consider the 
 social, civil, and religious condition and rights of 
 woman ; and in preparation for the meeting, they 
 wrote a " Declaration of Sentiments," which was 
 adopted by the assembly. They say, in describing 
 the writing of this declaration : " The reports of 
 Peace, Temperance, and Anti-Slavery conventions 
 were examined, but all alike seemed too tame and 
 pacific for the inauguration of a rebellion such 
 as the world had never before seen. We knew 
 women had wrongs, but how to state them was 
 the difficulty, and this was increased from the fact 
 that we ourselves were fortunately organized and 
 conditioned. . . . After much delay, one of the 
 circle took up the Declaration of 1TT6, and read 
 it aloud with spirit and emphasis, and it was at 
 once decided to adopt the historic document, Avith 
 
 some slight changes. Knowing that women must 
 
 39
 
 40 WOMAN AND THE REPUBLIC. 
 
 have more to complain of than men under any cir- 
 cumstances possibly could, and seeing the Fathers 
 had eighteen grievances, a protracted search was 
 made through statute books, church usages, and 
 the customs of society to find that exact number." 
 
 In such solemnly puerile fashion did they work 
 out a travesty on one of the most august utter- 
 ances ever penned. A young man who was 
 present remarked : " Your grievances must be 
 grievous indeed when you are obliged to go to 
 books in order to find them out." He might have 
 added, " And they must be false indeed when you 
 have to found most of your charges on dead-letter 
 statutes and outgrown usages and customs." 
 
 The Preamble of their Declaration reads : 
 " When, in the course of human events, it becomes 
 necessary for one portion of the family of man to 
 assume among the people of the earth a position 
 different from that which they have hitherto 
 occupied, but one to which the laws of nature and 
 of nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to 
 the opinions of mankind requires that they should 
 declare the causes that impel them to such a 
 course." 
 
 The declaration is as follows : " We hold these 
 truths to be self-evident: That all men and 
 women are created equal ; that they are endowed 
 by their Creator with certain inalienable rights ; 
 that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit 
 of happiness ; that to secure these rights govern- 
 ments are instituted, deriving their just powers
 
 THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 41 
 
 from the consent of the governed. Whenever any 
 form, of government becomes destructive of these 
 ends, it is the right of those who suffer from it to 
 refuse allegiance to it, and to insist upon the in- 
 stitution of a new government, laying its founda- 
 tion on such principles, and organizing its powers 
 in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to 
 effect their safety and happiness. Prudence, in- 
 deed, will dictate that governments long estab- 
 lished should not be changed for light and tran- 
 sient causes ; and accordingly all experience hath 
 shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, 
 while evils are suff erable, than to right themselves 
 by abolishing the forms to which they were ac- 
 customed. But when a long train of abuses and 
 usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object, 
 evinces a design to reduce them under absolute 
 despotism, it is their duty to throw off such gov- 
 ernment, and to provide new guards for their 
 future security. Such has been the patient suf- 
 ferance of the women under this government, and 
 such is now the necessity which constrains them 
 to demand the equal station to which they are en- 
 titled. The history of mankind is a history of 
 repeated injuries and usurpations on the part of 
 man toward woman, having in direct object the 
 establishment of an absolute tyranny over her. 
 To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid 
 world/' Then follows a categorical parody of the 
 eighteen grievances, which will be duly considered 
 in this and later chapters.
 
 42 WOMAN AND THE REPUBLIC. 
 
 After thirty years of Suffrage effort, the leaders 
 say that this instrument contained all that the 
 most radical have ever claimed. The Fathers of 
 the Revolution say in their Preamble : " When, in 
 the course of human events, it becomes necessary 
 for one people to dissolve the political bands 
 which have connected them with another, and to 
 assume among the powers of the earth the sepa- 
 rate and equal station to which the laws of nature 
 and of nature's God entitle them, a decent respect 
 to the opinions of mankind requires that they 
 should declare the causes which impel them to the 
 separation." The Mothers of the Woman's Rebel- 
 lion say : " When, in the course of human events, 
 it becomes necessary for one portion of the family 
 of man to assume among the people of the earth 
 a position different from that which they have 
 hitherto occupied, but one to which the laws of 
 nature and of nature's God entitle them, a decent 
 respect for the opinions of mankind requires that 
 they should declare the causes that impel- them to 
 such a course." The strained and ridiculous atti- 
 tude produced by ignoring the essential difference 
 between a political movement and a sex move- 
 ment is visible in every line, and yet that instinct 
 which finds for a new cause its appropriate chan- 
 nel never carried more truly than in this present- 
 ment of the ultimate purpose of woman suffrage. 
 The Fathers were met to dissolve the relations 
 that bound their land politically to a foreign 
 power, and to form a separate and equal nation.
 
 THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 43 
 
 The Mothers were met to dissolve the relations 
 that bound their sex politically to man, and to 
 form a separate and equal sex organization. The 
 Fathers proposed to free men, women, and children 
 from the yoke of England. The Mothers pro- 
 posed to free women and girls from the yoke of 
 men. It is suggestive to consider the " slight 
 changes," between the two Declarations. 
 
 The Fathers of the Revolution begin their pro- 
 test by saying: "We hold these truths to be 
 self-evident : That all men are created equal, 
 that they are endowed by their Creator with 
 certain inalienable rights ; that among these are 
 life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness." The 
 Mothers of the Woman's Rebellion add nothing 
 to the meaning, but detract greatly from the force 
 of its expression, Avhen in their parody they say : 
 " We hold these truths to be self-evident : That 
 all men and women are created equal, and are en- 
 dowed by their Creator with certain inalienable 
 rights ; that among these are life, liberty, and the 
 pursuit of happiness." These women of all in 
 America were the first to belittle themselves by 
 seeming to assume that in a revolutionary docu- 
 ment that was promulgated to declare a determi- 
 nation to wrest from tyranny the liberty that was 
 an inalienable right for all, they and their sex 
 Avere excluded because the generic term " man " 
 was employed in relation to another inalienable 
 right, which was about to be set forth, that 
 of revolution against intolerable tyranny. The
 
 44 WOMAN AND THE REPUBLIC. 
 
 Americans who framed that instrument would 
 have been the last men in the world to assert that 
 women were not the equals of men. They were 
 not discussing abstract human or sex conditions. 
 They met " to institute a new government." The 
 Mothers of the Woman's Kebellion had an inalien- 
 able right to meet " to institute a new govern- 
 ment," if they believed as sincerely as did the 
 Fathers of the Revolution that " a long train of 
 abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the 
 same object, evinced a design to reduce them under 
 absolute despotism." Life, liberty, and the pur- 
 suit of happiness were their natural and God- 
 given rights. If they truly believed that these 
 were trampled upon by government, they might be 
 justified in revolting and attempting to form a 
 new government. That they did not so believe, 
 seems to be proved by their statement that " they 
 knew that woman had wrongs, but how to state 
 them was the difficulty, and this was increased 
 from the fact that they themselves were fortu- 
 nately organized and conditioned." The Decla- 
 ration of Independence meant war against the 
 ever-growing encroachment of despotism. The 
 gauntlet was thrown down at the feet of a king 
 by his subjects. The Declaration of Sentiments 
 meant war against the whole social order as then 
 constituted. The gauntlet was thrown down at 
 the feet of man by those who declared him to be 
 a determined foe. 
 
 They had not the remotest notion of " institut-
 
 THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 45 
 
 ing a new government," far from it ; they relied 
 upon the old government to sustain them in mak- 
 ing their attempted " rebellion " a revolution. 
 Without the backing of the state's defence, they 
 had no expectation or hope of enforcing any new 
 enactment they might desire. They were gladly 
 consenting to be governed, in order to prove that 
 they withheld consent. 
 
 Should woman suffrage prevail, the foundation 
 principles of democracy would have to be over- 
 thrown and " a new government instituted " in 
 which the power should be delegated and not 
 direct, if the nation thus formed was to " assume 
 among the powers of the earth a separate and 
 equal station." The leaders of the Suffrage 
 movement well understood that they claimed no 
 inalienable right to institute a new government, 
 and this is again shown in another " slight change" 
 made by them. The first count in the suffrage 
 indictment against all men, but especially against 
 those of the American Eepublic, reads as follows : 
 " He has never permitted her to exercise her 
 inalienable right to the elective franchise." The 
 Fathers made no claim or suggestion that the 
 suffrage was an inalienable right, or a right at 
 all. Not only is there nothing to intimate that 
 voting was a natural right, but from that day to 
 this it has been the theory and the practice of our 
 Government to control the suffrage. The fact 
 that " governments were instituted among men " 
 for the purpose of securing inalienable rights,
 
 46 WOMAN AND THE REPUBLIC. 
 
 proves that in the opinion of the Declarers the 
 method of instituting a government was not in 
 itself inalienable. Governments to secure certain 
 inalienable rights are instituted among men, wrote 
 Jefferson, " deriving their just powers from the 
 consent of the governed." This was not the first 
 government founded upon " consent of the gov- 
 erned." The English government had been so 
 founded, but our fathers now refused their consent. 
 That particular government could no longer exist 
 for them with their consent. In their judgment, 
 it had become destructive of the proper ends of all 
 government, and so they proclaimed that the in- 
 alienable right to liberty made it to use the 
 words of the Declaration " the right, the duty, 
 of those who suffer from it to refuse allegiance to 
 it, and to institute a new government." 
 
 In the New York Constitutional Convention of 
 1867, Mr. George William Curtis defended the 
 proposition so to amend the Constitution as to 
 extend the suffrage to women. In the course of 
 his eloquent remarks he said : " The Chairman of 
 the Committee asked Miss Anthony whether, if 
 suffrage was a natural right, it could be denied to 
 children? Her answer seemed to me perfectly 
 satisfactory. She said simply, ' All that we ask 
 is an equal and not an arbitrary regulation. If 
 you have the right, we have it.' ' : To me it seems 
 to discredit the logical powers both of Miss 
 Anthony and of Mr. Curtis that one should have 
 made this reply and the other should have rested
 
 THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 47 
 
 content with it. That was a pertinent question, 
 and it was not answered at all. To say " if you 
 have the right, we have it," is not to tell whether 
 one thinks children should have it. As a matter 
 of fact, an agitation of " the rights of minors " 
 arose from the discussion of " natural right," and 
 also an agitation for " minority representation " 
 that is continued to this day. Mr. Curtis added : 
 "The honorable Chairman would hardly deny 
 that to regulate the exercise of a right according 
 to obvious reason and experience is one thing, to 
 deny it absolutely and forever is another." To 
 regulate a law is to abolish it, either relatively or 
 absolutely, for some, and to maintain it for others. 
 When the State of New York says that no alien 
 who has not been naturalized shall vote, that no 
 boy under twenty -one shall vote, that no person 
 resident in one town or ward shall vote in another, 
 that no criminal or pauper shall vote, it acts on 
 the natural principle of self-defence, which con- 
 travenes the dogma of a natural right of any one 
 to the suffrage. On that principle it would be 
 impossible for the Congress to impeach a Presi- 
 dent ; to forbid, as it did, those who had been in 
 rebellion from voting ; or to deny the suffrage to 
 a child or to any human being. Government 
 itself becomes impossible. Judge Story, whom 
 Suffrage writers claim as favorable to their cause 
 on other grounds, says that the right of voting 
 has always been treated as a granted and not a 
 natural right, derived from and regulated by each
 
 48 WOMAN AND THE REPUBLIC. 
 
 country according to its ideas of government. 
 Both Federal and State courts have decided again 
 and again that there is no such thing as a natural 
 right to suffrage. 
 
 The " consent of the governed " certainly meant 
 something very different to our fathers, and to our 
 statesmen, and to ourselves, from what it could 
 mean to any other government on earth. Although 
 the phrase itself may have been a euphemism 
 which sprang from Jefferson's sympathy with 
 the mighty rumblings of feeling that preceded 
 the French Revolution, still, it was certainly 
 meant that, so far as they could make it so, there 
 should be vastly more consenting by popular vote 
 than had been dreamed of in the mother country. 
 But it did not mean that each and every individ- 
 ual in the state must consent to each and every 
 law that governed him ; for not only has no gov- 
 ernment ever been instituted which derived " just 
 powers " in that way, but none ever will be, for 
 there never can be such unanimity. It did not 
 mean that every individual must consent to be 
 governed somehow, by some scheme of govern- 
 ment ; for its laws were carefully framed so as to 
 compel the external allegiance of those who never 
 consent the criminal and the anarchist. It did 
 not mean even that consent, in the sense of agree- 
 ment, was expected from a large body, or a small 
 body, as the case might happen, of those who 
 held views opposed to the policies that were con- 
 trolling at any given time. It meant just what
 
 THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 49 
 
 Jefferson meant in that other dictum of his : " The 
 will of the majority is the natural law of every 
 society, and the only sure guardian of the rights 
 of man." Together they interpret each other, 
 and are worthy of our Declaration and our Bill 
 of Rights. 
 
 The inalienable right to liberty in all mankind 
 forbids the right of anarchy in any of mankind ; 
 and the question of woman suffrage, strange as it 
 may appear, actually narrows itself down, as it 
 seems to me, to the question whether we shall have 
 democracy or anarchy. Democratic government 
 is at an end when those who issue decrees are not 
 identical with those who can enforce those decrees. 
 
 But, after all, the claim to suffrage as a natural 
 right has been practically abandoned by those 
 who first made that claim. Their next proposi- 
 tion was, that it was a universal right, springing 
 from the necessary conditions of organized society, 
 and so should be granted to woman as a member 
 of that society. They say in their Declaration : 
 " He deprived her of the first right of a citizen 
 the elective franchise." Chief Justice Waite of 
 the United States Supreme Court decided that 
 citizenship carried with it no voting power or 
 right. The same decision has been handed down 
 by many courts in disposing of test cases. 
 
 It seems to me quite as evident that what is now 
 
 called universal manhood suffrage does not rest 
 
 upon any belief by the state that this is " the first 
 
 right of a citizen," because no one doubts that if 
 
 4
 
 50 WOMAN AND TI1E REPUBLIC. 
 
 the time came when a majority deemed that the 
 preservation of the state depended upon disfran- 
 chising a number of voters, they would be dis- 
 franchised although they remained citizens. The 
 Suffrage leaders have, in theory at least, also 
 abandoned the claim to suffrage on the ground of 
 their universal right as citizens. A proof of this 
 is seen in the fact that at various times they have 
 suggested the extension of suffrage under qualifi- 
 cation. Among the latest that I have noticed, is 
 an address of Mrs. Stanton's to a Suffrage Con- 
 vention held in 1894, in which she proposed the 
 following: "Resolved, that the women of New 
 York petition the Legislature of the State to ex- 
 tend the suffrage to women on an educational 
 qualification." She must therefore believe that 
 the Legislature has the legal right to qualify it for 
 men ; and to withhold it from women is but an 
 extension of the right to qualify suffrage, because 
 it only says : " We do not consider woman citizens 
 qualified to be voters." Writing a year ago, Mrs. 
 Stanton said : " It is the duty of the educated 
 women of this Republic to protest against the ex- 
 tension of the suffrage to another man until they 
 themselves are enfranchised ! " Thus it would 
 appear that Mrs. Stanton does not believe in uni- 
 versal suffrage. A Suffrage speaker in New York 
 not long ago said naively : " We [the women, 
 when enfranchised] will vote to withhold the 
 suffrage from the ignorant." She did not explain 
 what would happen if the ignorant voted not to
 
 THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 51 
 
 have the suffrage withheld ; nor did she appear 
 to realize that she was practically admitting that 
 the present voters have the right to withhold the 
 suffrage from those whom they consider unfitted 
 for it. 
 
 But it is not true that American women did 
 not, and do not, " consent to be governed." They 
 have always consented loyally and joyfully. From 
 the time of the Boston Tea Party down to the 
 Civil War, and in such times of peace and pros- 
 perity as were indicated by the Columbian Ex- 
 position, when the Government formally asked 
 the assistance of its woman citizens, they showed 
 their consent by their deeds, and only the suf- 
 frage faction treated the invitation to share in the 
 Exposition after the immemorial fashion of a dis- 
 contented element. And the Suffragists themselves 
 consent to be governed every time they accept the 
 protection of the law or invoke it against a debtor ; 
 for they thereby acknowledge its proper applica- 
 tion to themselves if the case were reversed. 
 
 The second count in the list of political griev- 
 ances runs : " He has compelled her to submit to 
 laws in the formation of which she had no voice." 
 This was not true, for the women who wrote that 
 sentence were free to use their voices in regard to 
 every law they desired to affect, and circumstances 
 have proved that they were sure of being heard, 
 and, if the law were just, and for the general 
 good, of assisting materially to establish it. At 
 the very time when Elizabeth Cady Stanton and
 
 52 WOMAN AND THE REPUBLIC. 
 
 Lucretia Mott were writing that indictment 
 against the United States- Government, Dorothea 
 Dix was presenting a memorial to the National 
 Congress asking for an appropriation of five hun- 
 dred thousand acres of the public lands to endow 
 hospitals for the indigent insane. That bill failed 
 to pass, but in 1850 another bill, which she pre- 
 sented, asking for ten millions of acres, passed the 
 House and failed in the Senate merely for want 
 of time to consider it. Four years later a bill 
 making appropriations of the ten millions of acres 
 to the separate States passed both houses, and 
 President Pierce vetoed it, because he believed 
 the general Government had no constitutional 
 power to make such appropriations. She then 
 went to the Legislatures of the States, with the 
 result that is so well known. Rhode Island, Penn- 
 sylvania, New York, Indiana, Illinois, Louisiana, 
 and North Carolina founded lunatic asylums, and 
 the work was begun which is culminating in the 
 separation of the insane from the criminal, the 
 women from the men, in every town and county 
 of the land. The right of petition is not only as 
 open to women as to men, but because of the non- 
 partisan character of their claims and suggestions 
 they find quicker hearing. Miss Louise Lee 
 Schuyler has been more successful in securing the 
 enactment of laws for which she presented the 
 need than any one politician in the State of New 
 York, before whose Legislature they have both 
 pleaded, he with a vote which had to contend
 
 THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 53 
 
 against other votes, she with a voice that spoke 
 the united mind of a body of philanthropic women. 
 There was no unjust law which the Suffrage 
 Association could not have changed during these 
 fifty years, had it cared to try, and indeed its 
 members make the boast that many of the changes 
 are their own. Change and improvement of laws 
 was not their aim. It was a vote upon changing 
 or not changing laws that they sought for. The 
 difference is world- wide. 
 
 The third count in the indictment runs : " He 
 has withheld from her rights which are given to 
 the most ignorant men both natives and foreign- 
 ers." Dr. Jacobi represented the Suffrage cause 
 before the Special Committee of the Consti- 
 tutional Convention of New York State in 1894. 
 After drawing, in fine and truthfully glow- 
 ing words, a picture of woman's progress under 
 the institutions and laws of the United States, 
 she said : " For the first time, all political right, 
 privilege and power reposes undisguisedly on the 
 one brutal fact of sex, unsupported, untempered, 
 unalloyed by any attribute of education, any 
 justification of intelligence, any glamour of 
 wealth, any prestige of birth, any insignia of 
 actual poAver. . . . To-day, the immigrants 
 pouring in through the open gates of our seaport 
 towns, the Indian when settled in severalty, the 
 negro hardly emancipated from the degradation 
 of two hundred years of slavery, may all share 
 in the sovereignty of the State. The white
 
 54 WOMAN AND THE REPUBLIC. 
 
 woman, the woman in whose veins runs the 
 blood of those heroic colonists who founded our 
 country, of those women who helped to sustain the 
 courage of their husbands in the Revolutionary 
 War ; the woman who may have given the flower 
 of her youth and health in the service of our Civil 
 "War that woman is excluded. To-day women 
 constitute the only class of sane people excluded 
 from the franchise, the only class deprived of 
 political representation, except the tribal Indians 
 and the Chinese." To the same effect the editors 
 of the " Suffrage History " say : " The superiority 
 of man does not enter into the demand for 
 suffrage ; for in this country all men vote ; and as 
 the lower orders of men are not superior to the 
 higher orders of women, they must hold and ex- 
 ercise the right of self-government on sorn^e other 
 ground than superiority to woman." Here it 
 would seem that Mrs. Stanton and Miss Anthony 
 had been thinking, but they never followed their 
 own thought to its inevitable conclusion. Uni- 
 versal manhood suffrage does relieve the men of 
 this country from the unjust aspersion the women 
 of the Suffrage movement put upon them, that 
 they excluded women on account of inferiority. 
 
 No native American, who by the very fact of 
 that nativity is bound to support the Constitution 
 of the United States, and no foreign-born citizen 
 who has taken the oath of allegiance to it, has a 
 right by his vote to do anything that will imperil 
 or impede the carrying out of its principles and
 
 THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 55 
 
 its commands. " The establishment of justice, the 
 insurement of domestic tranquillity, provision for 
 the common defence, security in the blessings of 
 liberty to ourselves and our posterity," cannot 
 be perfected or maintained without the present 
 exercise and the reserve power of manhood 
 strength. This Government laid aside all "at- 
 tribute of education, or glamour of wealth, or 
 prestige of birth," and committed its life to the 
 keeping of its defenders. In this land, the 
 vote is the "insignia of actual power," but it 
 is only the insignia ; the power to defend them- 
 selves and those who make country and home 
 worth defending, lies with the individual defend- 
 ers. To attempt to put it into the hands of those 
 who are not physically fitted to maintain the ob- 
 ligatiqps that may result from any vote or any 
 legislative act, is to render law a farce, and to be- 
 tray the trust imposed upon them by the consti- 
 tution they have sworn to uphold. Universal 
 manhood suffrage is the crowning result in the 
 long evolution of government. Our statesmen of 
 the Revolutionary period did not contemplate it. 
 But stability was the thing for which they sought 
 the thing for which all statesmen of all times 
 have been searching. If a government is not 
 stable, it is of little consequence that it is full of 
 noble ideals ; and the most far-reaching thought 
 has now grasped the idea that manhood strength 
 is the natural and only defence of the state. This 
 is the underlying theory of our Government, the
 
 56 WOMAN AND THE REPUBLIC. 
 
 one solid rock on which it rests. When any ques- 
 tion of governmental policy comes up, we virtu- 
 ally decide it, sooner or later, by a manhood vote ; 
 and as the decision has a majority of the men of 
 the country behind it, there is no power that can 
 overthrow it. If we attempt to establish policies 
 or execute laws to which a majority of the men 
 are opposed, we throw away our one assurance of 
 stability, and are in constant danger of revolu- 
 tion. Even in the comparatively brief history of 
 our Republic, there are plentiful instances to show 
 that a majority of men will not submit to a mi- 
 nority, no matter how many non-combatants are 
 joined with that minority. To give women a 
 position of apparent power, without its reality, 
 would be to make our Government forever un- 
 stable. I 
 
 " This is placing the Christian and civilized 
 Government that stands as an example of peace- 
 ful progress on a foundation of brute force," cries 
 the Suffragist. The founders of the Woman Suf- 
 frage movement apparently did not take the least 
 account of either the military or the judicial 
 powers that are provided for in every State con- 
 stitution, as well as in the Nation's. They de- 
 manded "immediate admission to all the rights 
 and privileges which belong to them as citizens of 
 the United States," but said not a word about the 
 duties, disabilities, and money loss involved in the 
 possession of those rights and privileges. Tho 
 Fathers of the Revolution closed their Declara-
 
 THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 57 
 
 tion of Independence from the tyranny of Eng- 
 land by pledging " their lives, their fortunes and 
 their sacred honor " to attain it. The Mothers of 
 the Woman's Rebellion closed their Declaration 
 of Independence from the tyranny of man, and 
 especially from the tyranny of the United States 
 Government, with a pledge to distribute tracts 
 and hold conventions, while they depended upon 
 the courtesy of the tyrants to protect them in the 
 peaceful execution of their design. Is it any won- 
 der that the descendants of the old heroes who 
 had fought their way to our liberties smiled when 
 the by-laws of the would-be revolt were handed 
 to them ? 
 
 When the attention of the women was called 
 to the fact that force was needed, and that women 
 were exempt from, military service and jury and 
 police duty, they answered that " In an age when 
 the wrongs of society are adjusted in the courts 
 and at the ballot-box, material force yields to rea- 
 son and majorities." So successful has our Gov- 
 ernment been in carrying out the benign purposes 
 for which its heroes staked their lives, their fort- 
 unes, and their sacred honor, that in ordinary 
 times we see little of the strength that stands 
 quietly but firmly behind every law's enactment 
 and every poll's decision. The " strong arm " of 
 the law would lose its power to compel obedience 
 if behind the decree of judge, jury, and legislators 
 there was not a sheriff or a body of militia ready 
 to commit the unconsenting criminal to prison, or
 
 58 WOMAN AND THE REPUBLIC. 
 
 to take care of an unruly minority. At an elec- 
 tion, the minority do not acquiesce in the decision 
 of the majority because the outcome of the vote 
 has convinced them that the majority were right, 
 and they were wrong. They have not become 
 suddenly converted to the views of the majority. 
 That decision, as recorded by the ballot, shows 
 that if the minority do not keep their opinion in 
 abeyance, there are men enough on the other side 
 to compel them. Civilization has advanced so far 
 that, instead of blows there are arguments in 
 court, instead of bullets there are ballots at the 
 polls ; but the blows and the bullets must always 
 be ready, in case the arguments and the ballots 
 are unheeded. The physical strength that was 
 given to man to use, like every other gift, for the 
 good of the race, he is so using when he holds it 
 as a dernier ressort for law and order. 
 
 Dr. Jacobi says, in her address, " capacity to bear 
 arms, in fulfilment of military duty, is not, in the 
 State of New York, reckoned among the necessary 
 qualifications of voters." The statement is also 
 made by other Suffragists that " numerous classes 
 of men who enjoy political rights are exempt from 
 military duty, all men over forty-five, all who 
 suffer mental or physical disability, such as the 
 loss of an eye or a forefinger ; clergymen, physi- 
 cians, Quakers, school-teachers, professors, and 
 presidents of colleges, judges, legislators, congress- 
 men, state-prison officials, and all county, State, 
 and National officers ; fathers, brothers, or sons
 
 THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 59 
 
 having certain relatives dependent upon them for 
 support, all of these summed up in every State 
 would make millions who may be exempted, and 
 therefore there is no force in the plea that if 
 women vote they must fight." It is not true that 
 any class of voters is exempt. The State, regu- 
 lating that matter as it regulates the age and 
 residence of voters, as long as it has more de- 
 fenders than it needs for immediate use, makes 
 demand upon the youngest or strongest, but if it 
 needs them all, then all must serve. Again, all, 
 whether young or old, perfect or imperfect, must 
 be reckoned with as elements in making up the 
 count. Lawless men do not exempt themselves 
 from riot and rebellion because they are lame or 
 over forty-five. In the South, during the Rebel- 
 lion, there were few indeed who did not serve in 
 some capacity. If there were blind and aged men 
 enough to make a real difference in majorities, 
 Americans would quickly see the propriety of do- 
 ing as some republics that have to stand with arms 
 more " at attention " have done, and exclude them 
 from the vote. 
 
 But, suppose all those mentioned were really 
 exempt, how would that apply to women ? If a 
 like number were counted out, there would still 
 be a goodly array, from the maiden of twenty- 
 one to the matron of forty-five, from which to 
 draw. Mrs. Stanton and Miss Anthony write : 
 " Women have led armies in all ages, have held 
 positions in the army and navy for years in dis-
 
 60 WOMAN AND THE REPUBLIC. 
 
 guise, have fought, bled, and died on the battle- 
 field in our late war." The isolated occasions on 
 which they have done so are not such as to com- 
 mend the practice, neither do the Suffragists pro- 
 pose seriously to commend it. Dr. Jacobi, in her 
 address before the Committee of the Constitutional 
 Convention, says : " We do not admit that exemp- 
 tion from military duty is a concession of courtesy, 
 for which women should be so grateful as to re- 
 frain from asking for anything else. The military 
 functions performed by men, and so often per- 
 verted to most atrocious uses, have never been more 
 than the equivalent for the function of child-bear- 
 ing imposed by nature upon women. It is not a 
 fanciful nor sentimental, it is an exact and just 
 equivalent. The man who exposes his life in bat- 
 tle, can do no more than his mother did in the hour 
 she bore him. And the functions of maternity 
 persist, and will persist, to the end of time, while 
 the calls to arms are becoming so faint and rare 
 that three times since the Revolutionary War, an 
 entire generation of men has grown up without 
 having heard them." 
 
 This question of military service is not a ques- 
 tion of equivalent at all sentimental or other- 
 wise ; it is a question of the actual service, and as 
 to the service to the state given by women in 
 bearing sons, the men work not only to support 
 those sons but to support also their mothers and 
 sisters, and that far beyond the child-bearing age 
 of the mother. -
 
 THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 61 
 
 As to the rareness of the calls, I read of 
 seven wars since the Revolution, and three insur- 
 rections, not counting the riots and strikes at 
 Chicago, Homestead, Brooklyn, and in the mount- 
 ains in the West. Dr. Jacobi said in an article 
 in the " New York Sun," two years ago, " We do 
 not vote for war." That appears like a quibble, 
 for we vote for what brings, or may bring it ; 
 but neither is it exact in fact. Three times, at 
 least, in our history men have deposited their bal- 
 lots in the box, knowing that the result meant 
 peace or war. These were at the second election 
 of Madison in 1812, the election of Polk in 1844, 
 and that most solemn of all the acts of our coun- 
 try-men, the second election of President Lincoln. 
 There have been other elections in which war 
 issues werelinked with the decisions, but in a less 
 direct way. 
 
 The same writer says also, " The will of the 
 majority rules, for the time being, not, as has been 
 crudely asserted, because it possesses the power, 
 by brute force, to compel the minority to obey its 
 behests ; but because, after ages of strife, it has 
 been found more convenient, more equitable, 
 more conducive to the welfare of the state, that 
 the minority should submit, until, through argu- 
 ment and persuasion, they shall have been able to 
 win over the majority. Now that this stage in the 
 evolution of modern society has been reached, it 
 has become possible for women to demand their 
 share also in the expression of the public opinion
 
 62 WOMAN AND THE REPUBLIC. 
 
 that is to rule. They could not claim this while 
 it was necessary to defend opinions by arms ; 
 but this is no longer either necessary or expected." 
 How long is it since this comfortable state 
 of things was evolved ? Has England consented 
 to it? In view of Yenezuela and the Monroe 
 Doctrine it would be necessary to have her. Has 
 Spain mentioned her resignation of a right to 
 appeal to arms in case she was not pleased with 
 the conduct of our Government in regard to Cuba ? 
 Does the Sultan know about it, so that in case we 
 see a good fair fighting chance to help the Arme- 
 nians he will understand that the ages of strife 
 are over, and that persuasion has been found 
 more equitable and convenient than a resort to 
 arms? And the Czar, and the erratic German 
 Emperor, are they in the evolutionary agreement ? 
 Force is just what men are able to make it. It is 
 not brutish unless it is brutishly used. There is 
 as much force in the world to-day as there ever 
 has been, but it is better applied. It is the object 
 of a Christian civilization to persuade more and 
 more men to come to the defence of good against 
 evil in forms of government. Despotism and 
 absolutism are corrupt uses of force. Republi- 
 canism and a constitutional government are its 
 nobler uses. But the force is still behind them, or 
 there would be no power to continue such liberal 
 forms. During the first Republic, Marathon and 
 Thermopylae saved the principle of Western de- 
 mocracy against Oriental despotism, Salamis and
 
 THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 63 
 
 Plataea saved Greek letters and Greek art to the 
 continents that were yet to be. Christianity 
 changed the motive but not the method in evolu- 
 tion; and, finally in the last great Republic, 
 the American Revolution proclaimed liberty of 
 thought, the war of 1812 secured American inde- 
 pendence, while, beside the wandering Antietam 
 and on the field of Gettysburg " green regiments 
 went to their graves like beds " that the Union 
 might live, and that human slavery might die. 
 Manhood force, led by intelligence and goodness, 
 is the bulwark of that maternity that must persist 
 if heroes are to be. Dr. Jacobi's admission that 
 women could not claim the vote while it was 
 necessary to defend opinions by arms, is a vital 
 one, for it contravenes her entire argument. 
 
 Another plea of the Suffrage leaders is that 
 "men send substitutes, and so could women." 
 The answer in regard to exempt classes will apply 
 here also, because in case of need both substitute 
 and substituter are obliged to serve. During our 
 Civil War the fact that a man had sent a substi- 
 tute did not prevent him from being called in the 
 next draft. The state claims both men as its 
 defenders. But whom do the women propose to 
 substitute ? Other women ? No, they propose 
 to substitute men ! The Suffragists seriously 
 suggest that half the population, exempted by 
 nature from military duty, shall become organic 
 members of a government whose reliance, em- 
 bodied in every constitution, is upon the ability
 
 64 WOMAN AND THE REPUBLIC. 
 
 and the willingness of its organic members to do 
 military duty in defence of those constitutions, 
 and that this exempted half may have it as their 
 sole office, in case of war, to vote when and where 
 the lives, the fortunes, and the sacred honor of 
 those other organic members shall be laid down 
 or imperilled. Suffragists seem to forget, when 
 they boast of Joan of Arc, that the army she led 
 was masculine. 
 
 The English socialist, Mrs. Stanton Blatch, 
 daughter of Elizabeth Cady Stanton, in her ad- 
 dresses in this country two years ago, said : 
 " Woman is not protected through chivalry, but 
 because the men know that to put women to the 
 front is national suicide. Woman's part in war 
 is not to wail or weep, but to furnish the army 
 for the future." Then there is to be an army for 
 the future! Was there no "national suicide" 
 when over three million men were " put to the 
 front " in the Kebellion, and more than five hun- 
 dred thousand, North and South, laid down their 
 lives, so that through the veins of this generation 
 runs none of the gallant blood they spilled ? 
 Shall the fathers, and possible fathers, be the only 
 ones to die, if the mothers and betrothed proclaim 
 themselves no longer desirous of being protected 
 by such high sacrifice ? If women cease to " weep 
 and wail," will men not cease to be willing to bo 
 " furnished by them to the army ? " 
 
 " At any cost one good is cheap 
 The soldiers die lest women weep ;
 
 THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 65 
 
 And this reward is great and high 
 The women weep that soldiers die." 
 
 Women and soldiers cannot transpose their work. 
 The duty of each to the Republic is equally " great 
 and high ; " but in order to be done it must be 
 kept distinct as now. 
 
 But all this is subordinate to the real, vital 
 question. In the passages just quoted, the writers 
 make an error that is made so persistently by all 
 Suffragists whenever the argument of force is 
 alluded to, that it seems necessary to repeat the 
 explanation. They assume that this argument, 
 briefly stated, is : The men do the fighting, there- 
 fore they ought to be rewarded with the ballot. 
 That is not the argument ; it is no matter of re- 
 ward. The argument, briefly stated, is this: 
 Stability is one of the highest virtues that any 
 government can possess, and perhaps the most 
 necessary. It can have no stability if it issues 
 decrees that it cannot enforce. The only way to 
 avoid such decrees is, to make sure that behind 
 every law and every policy adopted stands a 
 power so great that no power in the land can 
 overthrow it. The only such power possible con- 
 sists of a majority of the men. Therefore, the 
 only safe thing for the Government to do is, to 
 carry out the ascertained will of a majority of the 
 men. This does not always secure ideally good 
 laws, but it does secure stability and avoids revolu- 
 tion. The majority may blunder ; but they are 
 the only power that can correct their own blunders. 
 5/
 
 66 WOMAN AND THE REPUBLIC. 
 
 But war does not call for the only form of 
 public service. There are others provided for in 
 the National and State constitutions, which are 
 constant and exacting. They are jury, police 
 and militia duty. When a boy reaches twenty- 
 one the law says to him, " You are my servant." 
 If a fire breaks out, the foreman can legally lay 
 his hand on the boy's shoulder, and say, " Help 
 to put out this conflagration." When the law is 
 broken, the sheriff can say to him, " Help me 
 make this arrest." When a turn of the judicial 
 wheel brings out his name, he must serve the 
 state on a jury ; if a riot occurs, he can be called 
 out to quell it ; and if a war arises, he can be 
 drafted to fight against the country's enemies. 
 There is not a single act of defence to which the 
 voter was subjected by law when the Constitution 
 was framed, to which he is not subject now, and 
 subject because he is a voter. The vote is not 
 given to him as a reward for standing ready to 
 give this service to the state ; it is a recognition 
 by the state that, as he must stand ready to de- 
 fend it, he should assist in establishing the laws 
 which it may call upon him to enforce. As he 
 has assisted to frame them, he cannot refuse to 
 defend them. Woman's only relation to this de- 
 fence is that of beneficiary, and therefore her re- 
 lation to the laws with which that defence is as- 
 sociated must be one of advice and not of control. 
 Fortunately for her, advice may prove sometimes 
 to be control of the most satisfactory kind, a kind
 
 THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 67 
 
 that admits of mental power and does not exact 
 physical. 
 
 The statement is further made by Suffragists 
 that " though woman needs the protection of one 
 man against his whole sex, in pioneer life, in 
 threading her way through a lonely forest, on the 
 highway, or in the streets of a metropolis on a 
 dark night, she sometimes needs, too, the protec- 
 tion of all men against this one. But even if she 
 could be sure, as she is not, of the ever-present, 
 all-protecting power of one strong arm, that 
 would be weak indeed compared with the subtle, 
 all-pervading influence of just and equal laws for 
 all women. Hence woman's need of the ballot, 
 that she may hold in her own right hand the 
 weapon of self-protection and defence." The 
 possession of the ballot has not been able to secure 
 for men " the subtle and all-pervading influence 
 of just and equal laws," and despite his holding 
 the ballot in his own hand, man has had to hold 
 also a more apparent weapon if he visit a striker's 
 camp or meddle with an anarchist riot. Some- 
 thing more tangible than protective influence is 
 needed to make the public streets of this city safe 
 for women in broad daylight. Again, they say 
 that " Wisdom would suggest division of labor in 
 peace as well as in war." Wisdom would have 
 no chance to make such a suggestion, if women 
 attempted to do the same work as do men, in the 
 same way. There is true division of labor now, 
 in peace as well as in war.
 
 68 WOMAN AND THE REPUBLIC. 
 
 Suffragists mention as a final indignity the ex- 
 tension of the suffrage to the negro. Their pro- 
 test only serves to suggest another forcible illus- 
 tration of the fact that law and the enforcement 
 of law may be different things. The suffrage is 
 not extended to the negro. The Congress of the 
 United States voted that it should be so extended ; 
 and while the Government stood behind his vote 
 with its military power, the negro voted. But no 
 one pretends that he has done so, to any prac- 
 tical extent, since that time. Unarmed, the 
 negro finds that he cannot enforce his own vote 
 against the will of white men armed to the teeth. 
 The " all-pervading influence of just and equal 
 laws " cannot enforce it for him. Would the 
 women be any better off, if the men chose that 
 they should not exercise the vote ? "Who would 
 enforce it ? 
 
 This fact and argument show how little arbitra- 
 tion has to do with the practical decision concern- 
 ing suffrage. Suffrage writers and speakers harp 
 upon the thought that arbitration will take the 
 place of force. That method of settling disputes 
 cannot come too quickly, but it has not come yet. 
 It has no real bearing on the organization of the 
 state as resting upon the civil and military service 
 of its citizens. England consented to arbitrate 
 with the powerful United States, but refused to 
 arbitrate with defenceless Nicaragua in a far less 
 important matter. Congress has seriously con- 
 sidered exterminating the remnant of the beauti-
 
 THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 69 
 
 ful herd of seals that once played in our Northern 
 Pacific waters, because British subjects have con- 
 tinued, in violation of the Arbitration treaty, to 
 kill the animals with cruelty. Behind arbitra- 
 tion, as behind all law and order, military power 
 must always stand and must sometimes be used. 
 One more proof that the vote is not the real 
 power, but only its insignia, lies in the fact that 
 legislation has not been able to put an end to 
 strikes and riots. Laws that forbid them are 
 passed Avith all due form ; but when they come, 
 as come they do, the reading of the riot act is sus- 
 pended and the regiments are ordered to Chicago, 
 or Buffalo, or Brooklyn, or Homestead, or Cripple 
 Creek, or Cleveland, or the Indian country. The 
 force of those bodies was not " brutal," it was 
 physical power obeying mental ; and unless men- 
 tal power can command physical, there is no way 
 in which mental power can enforce its decrees in 
 government. There are now facing us tremen- 
 dous moral issues, which presage tremendous 
 struggles ; and a very notable example of the dan- 
 gers that would attend woman suffrage is sug- 
 gested by them. If women had the power to 
 create a numerical majority when there was a 
 majority of the law's natural and only defenders 
 against them, they might soon precipitate a crisis 
 that would lead to bloodshed, which they would 
 be powerless either to prevent or to allay. "Would 
 the majority of men submit to the minority of 
 men associated with non-combatants ? American
 
 70 WOMAN AND THE REPUBLIC. 
 
 history furnishes no reason for supposing that 
 they would. The Dorr War in Rhode Island is a 
 case in point, in local matters. I am neither an 
 alarmist nor a believer in war as a panacea ; but 
 if we discuss this subject at all, we must dis- 
 cuss it with facts and not fancies in our minds. 
 
 Dr. Jacobi again says, in her book : " It may 
 be said, for it has been said, that the objection to 
 seeing a vote of seven hundred men overcome by 
 a coalition of three hundred men with eight hun- 
 dred women, lies in the fact that the defeated 
 minority knows, if it had a free hand and was al- 
 lowed to use fisticuffs, it could pound into a jelly 
 a majority composed so largely of women. It 
 would feel, therefore, sullen, restive, and justly 
 indignant, that it should be prohibited from using 
 this power and obliged to submit to a merely nom- 
 inal force and supremacy." 
 
 The objection to seeing seven hundred men de- 
 feated by a coalition of three hundred men with 
 eight hundred women, lies in the fact that the de- 
 feated minority knows that it has a free hand, and 
 that nothing less than eight hundred men could 
 prevent it from using its physical power, were it 
 so inclined. Only a force and supremacy that was 
 real, and not nominal, could make it to submit. 
 The rhetorical trick of belittling the matter by 
 speaking of it as " fisticuffs " will not pass in this 
 discussion. "When the South Carolina negroes on 
 election day looked into the rifle-barrels of the 
 Red-shirt clubs, it was no matter of fisticuffs.
 
 THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 71 
 
 When every statesman in our country was eagerly 
 seeking a peaceful solution of the Hayes-Tilden dis- 
 pute, it was not fisticuffs that they feared. When 
 the Dostie convention was broken up and its 
 leaders murdered in New Orleans, it was not by 
 means of fisticuffs. When the Chicago anarchists 
 threw their bomb into the ranks of the policemen 
 in Hay market Square, they were not playing at 
 fisticuffs. When the rail way strikers in Pittsburg 
 stopped the trains, " killed " the locomotives, and 
 burned the freight, there was no fisticuffs about 
 it. And when a Southern minority refused to 
 abide by the result of the election of 1860, and 
 the Northern majority shouldered muskets and 
 went down and compelled them to, not the most 
 flippant writer would have thought of calling it 
 fisticuffs. All these are simply readily recalled 
 instances of the necessity for power in the en- 
 forcement of law. 
 
 She goes on to say : "But is it only in such a 
 hypothetical case that a minority would know it 
 could, if allowed to resort to physical force, shiver 
 to fragments the majority ? The burly brakemen 
 in railroad strikes would, probably, in a fair hand- 
 to-hand encounter, be much bested over all the 
 stockholders of the road, weakened, not only 
 because they included women in their midst, but 
 also by sedentary habits and predominately indoor 
 occupations. Why do they not try this way of 
 settling their difficulties ? Why do not the classes 
 in England, who still remain entirely disfran-
 
 72 WOMAN AND THE REPUBLIC. 
 
 chised, and with whom rests so much physical 
 strength, drop their fists into the balance as 
 Brennus did his sword, and cut short the futile, 
 womanish discussion ? The answer is ready in 
 every one's mouth. It is not that it cannot 
 be done, but that, on the whole, people are 
 all agreed that it is best it should not be done. 
 It is not that physical force is respected less, 
 but that mental force is respected more." 
 
 A 
 
 I reply that both these things have been at- 
 tempted over and over again, and the agreement 
 of all the wise and good people that it is best that 
 it should not be done cannot prevent it. Behind 
 the burly brakemen who have seized the train, 
 and the stockholders to whom it lawfully belongs, 
 there lies a power greater than all the brakemen 
 and stockholders together. We call it the power 
 of law. It is, in fact, the power of a sovereign 
 people, who, having made that law, are able to 
 enforce it against the breakers of it. It is nec- 
 essary, in the discussion of this point, to have 
 clearly in mind the difference between sovereign 
 power and delegated power. When a member of 
 a stock company attends the annual meeting and 
 casts one vote for every share that he holds, he 
 is exercising delegated power. The sovereign 
 people, acting through their representatives in the 
 legislature, have delegated to the company the 
 power to regulate its affairs in this way, and 
 guaranteed to each shareholder this privilege. 
 Should a combination of some of the shareholders
 
 THE AMERICA N EEP UBLIC. 73 
 
 attempt to prevent one from exercising it, he 
 would appeal to the court, and behind the court 
 stands the power of the people, many times larger 
 than any stock company that exists. On the 
 other hand, when men go to the polls on election 
 day, they exercise, not delegated, but sovereign, 
 power. There is no greater power, above and be- 
 yond themselves, to regulate their actions. The 
 enfranchised classes in England do drop their fists 
 into the balance, and, as a result, we have seen 
 the extensions of suffrage that marked the years 
 1832 and 1848, and the reason some classes are 
 still unfranchised is, that the monarchy that wills 
 their unfranchisement has, as yet, more power at 
 command than those who would enfranchise them. 
 Mental and moral force is more respected with 
 every rolling year, because those who respect it 
 have been able to obtain control of the physical 
 power that can force its decrees upon those who 
 do not respect it. 
 
 The third count in the indictment is : " Having 
 deprived her of the first right of a citizen, the 
 elective franchise, thereby leaving her without 
 representation in the halls of legislation, he has 
 oppressed her on all sides." As, in securing the 
 exact number of grievances mentioned by the 
 Fathers, the Mothers were compelled to string 
 out their distresses somewhat, I will quote the 
 next count in the indictment, and consider these 
 two together. " After depriving her of all rights 
 as a married woman, if single, and the owner of
 
 74 WOMAN AND THE REPUBLIC. 
 
 property, he has taxed her to support a govern- 
 ment which recognized her only when her prop- 
 erty could be made profitable to it." 
 
 The many-sided oppression, and the deprivation 
 as a married woman, belong in other chapters. 
 The remaining portions of the two counts may 
 be summed up under the familiar cry : " No tax- 
 ation without representation." "What did that 
 just accusation mean when our fathers uttered it 
 in regard to English tyranny ? Did they mean 
 that their property was taxed, and they had no 
 redress ? The phrase originated with Patrick 
 Henry, who read to the Virginia House of Bur- 
 gesses the decision gleaned from a study of " Coke 
 upon Lyttleton," that "Englishmen living in 
 America had all the rights of Englishmen living 
 in England, the chief of which was, that they 
 could only be taxed by their own representatives," 
 and on that was founded the resolution adopted 
 by them that the colonies could not be lawfully 
 taxed in a body in which they were not repre- 
 sented ; for the colonies, as well as individuals, 
 had no vote in Parliament. They meant that their 
 property could not be so taxed, and they meant 
 far more. The more that they meant was em- 
 bodied by Jefferson in the first draft of the Dec- 
 laration of Independence, when he said : " Can 
 any one reason be assigned why a hundred and 
 sixty thousand electors in the island of Great 
 Britain should give law to four million in the 
 States of America ? " John Hancock meant that
 
 THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 75 
 
 and more when he said : " Burn Boston and 
 make John Hancock a beggar, if the public good 
 requires it." He was offering his taxed property 
 to defend the liberties of the four millions against 
 the hundred and sixty thousand electors. The 
 refusal of the majority to be ruled longer by the 
 minority was the main motive of determination 
 not to submit. But at that time all voting was 
 connected with a tax on property, and so was the 
 suffrage established by these men. And under 
 those property-tax laws women who held prop- 
 erty could vote. It was when taxation ceased to 
 go with representation, that the women ceased to 
 vote. There is now no connection between taxa- 
 tion of property and representation. When 
 people were allowed votes in proportion to the 
 amount of property they held, and could vote in 
 different counties and States, there was a connec- 
 tion, and that law gave the rich man more voting 
 power than the poor man. But all aristocratic 
 qualification was done away with, and the govern- 
 ment came to rely solely on the strength of indi- 
 vidual men for its defence, instead of upon men 
 and women with money enough to raise soldiery. 
 There is a money tax levied on the property of 
 men and women alike ; and in return for the pay- 
 ment of this tax the property of both men and 
 women is made secure against unlawful injury. 
 In order to make it secure, the state lays, upon 
 men alone, a service tax, and with that tax goes 
 representation, or the vote. This service tax does
 
 76 WOMAN AND THE REPUBLIC. 
 
 not fall upon woman, and it cannot be demanded 
 of her ; so it is not true that " Man has taed her 
 to support a government which recognizes her 
 only when her property can be made profitable 
 to it." He has, in return for the money tax, so 
 guarded her property through the service tax on 
 men that it is of profit to her, which without that 
 guard it could not be. 
 
 The tax on property is collected from that of 
 minors and unnaturalized citizens, resident or 
 non-resident, and to all these classes, as well as to 
 non-voting women, is given the right of petition 
 and legal redress of whatever sort. The men 
 do not have " equal rights " in regard to public 
 control of their taxable property, if equal rights 
 means that each man shall be able to say what 
 shall be done to, or with, or about, the property 
 on which he pays taxes. The penniless voter can 
 have as much to say as to whether a railroad shall 
 cross the lands of a millionaire as the millionaire 
 himself. At every town election the minority 
 are unheeded, so far as the vote goes, and women 
 with property interests would be no better off if 
 they secured votes in the only way they can be 
 secured one voice, one vote. 
 
 Lydia Maria Child said, in a letter reprinted in 
 the Woman's edition of " The Rochester Post-Ex- 
 press " in 1896 : " I reduce the argument to very 
 simple elements. I pay taxes for property of my 
 own earning and saving, and I do not believe in 
 taxation without representation. As for repre-
 
 THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 77 
 
 sentation by proxy, that savors too much of the 
 plantation system, however kind the master may 
 be. I am a human being, and every human being 
 has a right to a voice in the laws which claim au- 
 thority to tax him, to imprison him, or to hang 
 him." 
 
 Not only has every human being in the United 
 States a right to a voice in the laws that claim 
 authority to tax him, imprison him, or hang him, 
 but he can exercise that right in all portions of 
 the United States where the laws that claim this 
 authority are able to enlist sufficient physical 
 force to execute the authority claimed. Where 
 they have not that power, neither the voter nor 
 the non-voter has any redress against violence 
 offered to property or limb or life. Gerryman- 
 ders and lynchings in many parts of our land prove 
 the truth of this. The mastery of men who abide 
 by and execute law is not a mastery over women 
 for the sake of the spoils of taxation or the dis- 
 posal of life, but the mastery over lawlessness 
 everywhere in order that tax-payers of either sex, 
 native or alien, voters or non-voters, may be en- 
 abled to have that voice in the laws which, as 
 human beings, is their right. As to the " vote by 
 proxy," if Mrs. Child could not trust her husband, 
 her son, her brother, or best friend to look after 
 her interests, she certainly could not trust the car- 
 rying out of her Avish, as expressed in her vote, 
 to the men who cast in their ballots by her side. 
 
 In return for the taxes paid, women get just what
 
 78 WOMAN AND THE REPUBLIC. 
 
 men get, namely, roads, gas, water, schools, etc. 
 The women who have refused to pay their taxes 
 because they did not vote, have been treated with 
 a leniency that proves the courtesy of the law-en- 
 forcers. They would have made short work with 
 men who were non-voters, who had tried the same 
 tactics. "When a man's vote is challenged and re- 
 fused, he does not dream of saying : " I shall not 
 pay my tax," and the assessor never inquires 
 whether he votes or desires to vote. The men in 
 the District of Columbia do not find their un- 
 f ranchised condition assuaged by the smallness of 
 their account with the assessor. Neither do they 
 realize or believe that they are governed without 
 their consent, or exempt from police or military 
 duty. This is a striking proof that the vote is not 
 a reward for service. They are male American 
 citizens, over twenty-one years old, and they must 
 contribute service simply and solely for that rea- 
 son. This is the price they pay for established 
 order. 
 
 For, after all, what is government, and what 
 are taxation and representation ? When and how 
 did society consent to be governed ? When did it 
 agree to be taxed and to be represented ? The 
 awful story of history, from the slaying of Abel 
 to the slaughter of half a million men in the War 
 of Secession, is the answer. It never did agree, it 
 has not yet agreed. The struggle of civilization 
 is the effort to make it agree. Implanted in the 
 bosom of man by his Maker is the belief in his
 
 THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 79 
 
 individual freedom, of worship as concerns that 
 Maker, of protection as concerns man. Side by- 
 side with that, was implanted the principle of sur- 
 render of a part of that freedom for just cause. 
 There came a time when men said : " Let us use 
 arguments instead of force in these decisions," 
 and some form of vote was instituted. With this 
 they fought and voted by turns, as they set up 
 or knocked down emperors, kings, popes, and 
 presidents. War has been changed by progress 
 because man has changed ; but main strength to 
 drive home the truths gained on the moral battle- 
 field is still the power behind the throne of the 
 National conscience, even in this enlightened 
 land. 
 
 Though the Mothers of the Eebellion did not 
 ask, and apparently did not think of asking, to 
 share the military duties incident to suffrage, we 
 must discuss it, if we are to consider the subject 
 thoroughly. To be a voting citizen, is to be a 
 possible soldier citizen. There is no way of ful- 
 filling the moral part of the duty, and leaving un- 
 fulfilled the physical, and it is cowardly to at- 
 tempt it. So the question comes, could American 
 women be soldiers ? They could, for a few in dis- 
 guise were in service during the War of Seces- 
 sion. Titled women of Europe are honorary 
 officers; but this playing soldier is a relic of 
 Middle-Age chivalry. Women can be seriously 
 destructive ; but no one will claim that organized 
 military duty is really practicable for them.
 
 80 WOMAN AND THE REPUBLIC. 
 
 And the suffrage proposition does not look to 
 anything of the kind. The Suffragists demand 
 equal vote in sending their fathers, brothers, 
 sons, husbands, and lovers to the military field 
 of action, and propose to be absolutely exempt 
 from equal share in the duty that that vote now 
 lays upon male voters. Before the law there 
 could be no distinction f duty on account of race, 
 sex, or previous condition of servitude. The 
 " emancipated " woman would be emancipated 
 into that which the Declaration of Independence 
 expressly called for, " the right and privilege of 
 the people to bear arms." 
 
 The constitution of Utah says that the State 
 militia is to consist of " able-bodied males," and I 
 have not yet heard that the women who vote 
 there have insisted that the word " male " be 
 struck out of that clause of the Constitution. By 
 no means, every woman expects to be exempt. 
 After women had succeeded in getting the fram- 
 ers of the constitution of every State to strike out 
 the word " male," from its voting qualification, 
 they would expect them to insert the word " male " 
 in mentioning the service qualification. O Equal- 
 ity, where is thine equal for granting privilege ! 
 Such chivalry, it would seem, is an insult to the 
 power and intelligence of the women of Utah, 
 who celebrated their "enfranchisement" by a 
 convention to favor the free coinage of silver, 16 
 to 1, and whose behavior on that occasion was, to 
 say the least, boyish. The tax upon time and
 
 THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 81 
 
 strength, and the money loss of citizen service, 
 Suffrage leaders did not once allude to. They did 
 not, and do not, propose to pay even a double 
 money tax on account of expected exemption. 
 Little as this would have availed to meet the 
 actual situation, it would have shown their good 
 will, and some comprehension of justice, while 
 they talked of an absurd and intangible " right." 
 But, it might be said, " Utah did insert such a 
 clause into her constitution, and so could other 
 States. It is, after all, common sense that rules, 
 and men can legislate what they please." The 
 law passed by Utah, which provided that " male 
 voters must be tax-payers, while female voters 
 need not be," was decided to be unconstitutional, 
 and this one also may well be. At the end 
 of Utah's Constitution, as of every other, and 
 of every bill that is passed, occurs or is under- 
 stood something like this sentence from the Uni- 
 ted States Constitution : " The Congress shall 
 have power to enforce this article by appropriate 
 legislation." Is it the " appropriate legislation " 
 that gives to Congress, or to any other body, the 
 power to enforce the article decided upon by a 
 majority ? We know that it is not. It is the 
 men who can enforce it if it is disobeyed. Every 
 day we see that some laws are " dead letters," 
 not because the legislation appropriate to their 
 enforcement was not perfect, but because they 
 are not enforced. When Mr. Roosevelt became 
 
 Chairman of the Police Commission there had 
 6
 
 82 WOMAN AND THE REPUBLIC. 
 
 been for some time a bill, duly legislated, for the en- 
 forcement of the Sunday closing of liquor saloons 
 in New York city. But the saloons had not been 
 closed. Mr. Roosevelt summoned the police, and 
 proceeded to enforce the law. If they had re- 
 fused, the militia stood behind them. Do you 
 say, " Yery well, if Miss Willard had been Chair- 
 man of the Commissioners she could have done 
 the same." There would have been this great 
 difference. Mr. Roosevelt himself was as much 
 subject to serve at the call of the law, as were the 
 policemen. He was not a dictator merely, he 
 was part and parcel of the strength that he in- 
 voked. The reason for obedience rested on the 
 same ground in each case service in which each 
 stood equal. It is a specious form of mistake to 
 suppose that " men can legislate just what they 
 wish to." They can legislate only what the 
 majority decrees, and they can legislate effectively 
 only what they have power to enforce. Had the 
 saloon-keepers refused to obey Miss Willard, not 
 she, but Mr. Roosevelt and other men would have 
 had to enforce the law. 
 
 It is absurd in itself, and annoying to Suffrage 
 advocates, to talk about military duty for woman. 
 Her very nature forbids it. So it is, and so it 
 does, and therefore it is equally absurd to talk 
 about her attempting to assume duties whose very 
 nature forbids their being done by her. Were 
 voting only a matter of obtaining the opinion of 
 women on matters that concern the country, or
 
 THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 83 
 
 concern them (and all matters that concern the 
 country concern them), all precedent gathered 
 from the treatment of American women by 
 American men goes to prove that no urging would 
 have been required to secure for them as large a 
 measure of suffrage as was consistent with their 
 duties and their desires. 
 
 In 1879 an earnest discussion on Woman Suf- 
 frage was held in the legislature of Massachusetts. 
 Four propositions were pending. The first was 
 that a constitutional amendment should be submit- 
 ted to the people, which, if accepted, would decree 
 to women full suffrage. Thomas Wentworth 
 Higginson, Lucy Stone and "William Lloyd Gar- 
 rison argued the case for the women. Col. Hig- 
 ginson said that if ability to fight were made the 
 test of voting " a large proportion of men, espe- 
 cially of professional men, would be disfranchised. 
 The report of the Surgeon-General of the United 
 States showed that of the thousand clergymen 
 who volunteered or were drafted during the war. 
 945 were declared to be unfit for service. Of the 
 lawyers who volunteered or were drafted, 650 
 were rejected, and of the physicians, 745." He 
 added, " You must go down to the mechanics and 
 laborers before you can find a class of men a 
 majority of whom will fulfil this requirement. 
 Of the clergymen who preach that woman suf- 
 frage is wrong because women can do no military 
 duty, only one twentieth would themselves be 
 accepted for such service. There is but one class
 
 84 WOMAN AND THE REPUBLIC. 
 
 of men better fitted than mechanics for military 
 service, and that is the prize-fighting class, 
 and therefore the constituency which sent 
 John Morrissey to Congress was the only con- 
 stituency that ever carried out this idea to the 
 end." Col. Higginson, who played a gallant 
 part in the Civil War, should have remembered 
 what poor fighting material the country found in 
 such men as formed the constituency of John 
 Morrissey. The regiment of Zouaves raised in 
 New York City by Billy Wilson, the pugilist, was 
 found to be so mischievous, as well as worthless, 
 that it was shipped to the Dry Tortugas in order to 
 rid the army of a pest. On the other hand, many 
 of the most gallant as well as most orderly soldiers 
 came from dry-goods stores and apothecary shops. 
 The pugilists and roughs are the very ones that 
 are good for nothing as soldiers ; they belong to 
 the class that makes soldiery necessary. 
 
 When Col. Higginson can use such logic, it is 
 no wonder that women have repeated the argu- 
 ment. The question was not whether, because 
 certain men who were naturally looked upon by 
 the Government as its defenders, and as such were 
 called upon to fight, proved physically unable, 
 but whether the Government had a right, because 
 of its very existence, to call upon those men, and 
 in case of need, to say to them " Put yourself 
 into physical condition for this service." If it 
 had such a right, by what law under the constitu- 
 tion of the United States could Lucy Stone ask
 
 THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 85 
 
 to vote and not expect to have her military fit- 
 ness inquired into, and be asked to put herself 
 into physical condition for it ? 
 
 Recalling the action of her grandfather, she, 
 better than some other women, might have realized 
 the necessity of force for government. Her de- 
 fiant spirit might well have descended from that 
 ancestor who led four hundred men in Shays's 
 Rebellion, when, in the State before whose tribunal 
 she was speaking, he assisted in preventing court 
 sessions, and swelled the ranks of the rioters who 
 were decrying taxes and calling for fiat money, 
 in a land that was impoverished and was strug- 
 gling for a sound financial standing after a war 
 that had been waged to guarantee the blessings 
 of freedom to her and to her children. 
 
 As a matter of fact, many of those men whom 
 Col. Higginson referred to as deemed unfit, did go 
 into immediate training, and " muscular Christian- 
 ity " would now present to the Surgeon-General 
 a different showing. It was one of the surprising 
 things, in a statistical way, to find that city-bred 
 boys stood the marching and exposure of the 
 Civil War campaigns better than their country 
 brothers, and that the j^ard-stick turned into as 
 effective a sword as the pruning-hook. Garrison, 
 who maintained for so many years that men should 
 not vote because the government was founded 
 on force, had the grace not to speak on this 
 phase of the question, but he said it was cruel that 
 women should be disfranchised and classed with
 
 86 WOMAN AND THE REPUBLIC. 
 
 paupers, idiots, and criminals. Senator Hayes 
 asked him if there was no " difference between a 
 person who was disfranchised and one who never 
 had been enfranchised ? " and added that " he 
 could see no argument for woman suffrage in the 
 proposition that certain classes of men were not 
 permitted to vote." Neither can I. 
 
 The argument for woman suffrage which bases 
 it upon a fancied grouping of women with the 
 vile and brainless element in the country, appears 
 to me to be at once the weakest and the meanest 
 of all. When the United States Government 
 invited its woman citizens to share in making the 
 Columbian Exposition the most wondrous pageant 
 of any age, they responded from every town and 
 hamlet by sending of their best. But the na- 
 tional Suffrage Association, as its official exhibit, 
 gave a picture of the expressive face of Miss 
 Wiilard surrounded by ideal heads of a pauper, an 
 idiot, and a criminal, with a legend recording their 
 belief that it was with these that American men 
 placed American women. So false a picture must 
 have taught the thoughtful gazers the opposite 
 lesson from the one intended. It could have told 
 them that the United States Government had at 
 least guarded one trust with sacred care. The 
 pauper was excluded from the ballot as not being 
 worthy to share with freemen the honor of its 
 defence. The unfortunate was excluded by an 
 inscrutable decree of Providence. The criminal 
 was excluded as being dangerous to society. The
 
 THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 87 
 
 women were exempt from the ballot because it 
 was for their special safety that a free ballot was 
 to be exercised, from which the pauper and the 
 criminal must be excluded. They were the ones 
 who have given to social life its meaning and its 
 moral, the ones who give to civic life its highest 
 value. 
 
 The authors of the " History " so often referred 
 to, in answer to the claim that " government 
 needs force behind it, and those who make the 
 laws must execute them, and a woman could not 
 be a sheriff or policeman," say : " "Woman might 
 not fill these offices as men do, but might far 
 more effectively guard the morals of society and 
 the sanitary conditions of our cities." A " moral 
 guard" might be an excellent thing to ward 
 off the ghosts in a country burying-ground, but 
 would hardly prove effective against the riot of a 
 Tammany mob on the night of an exciting elec- 
 tion. It is absurd to speak in such fashion of 
 work that is needed every hour. The crust of 
 our civilization is very thin how thin, the nation 
 learned during the campaign just passed. Like 
 a tempest from a clear sky, or one of their own 
 cyclones, burst an influence from a portion of the 
 West and South, that would have overturned the 
 Government. Men struck fanatically and mis- 
 guidedly at the integrity of the Supreme Court, 
 at the power of the United States to hold juris- 
 diction over its own public affairs where they con- 
 flicted with State right, at the currency that
 
 88 WOMAN AND THE REPUBLIC. 
 
 gave the country ability to be honest at home and 
 abroad, at the prosperity and honor of every 
 citizen. 
 
 Fifteen years ago Suffrage leaders wrote in 
 view of the wonderful advance of woman : " The 
 broader demand for political rights has not com- 
 manded the thought its merits and dignity should 
 have secured." If this was true, it had not been 
 for lack of having the demand pressed home upon 
 Congress and upon every State and Territorial 
 legislature (save in most of the South), in season 
 and out of season, by every device known to poli- 
 tics, as well as by a steady and impetuous flow of 
 literature and petitions. How have these bodies 
 answered this long appeal ? It would take too 
 much time and space, even were it of value, to 
 follow the course of its ups and downs through 
 all these years, but I mention first the fact that 
 no State in New England has ever granted con- 
 stitutional, or even municipal suffrage, although in 
 some of the old thirteen it could have been done 
 by an act of the legislature, a constitutional amend- 
 ment not being needed. These are some of the 
 figures for the past few years : 
 
 In Vermont, in 1892, the House passed a mu- 
 nicipal suffrage bill yeas 149, nays 83. In 1894 
 the House defeated a similar bill by a vote of 108 
 to 106, and refused reconsideration by a vote of 
 124 to 96. Thus a favorable majority of 66 in 
 1892 was changed to an adverse majority of 28 in 
 1894.
 
 THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 89 
 
 In Massachusetts, in 1894, the House passed a 
 municipal suffrage bill by a vote of 119 to 107. 
 In 1895 it defeated a similar bill, the vote standing, 
 yeas 97, nays 137, on the question of carrying the 
 bill to a third reading. In the same year an act 
 was passed permitting all persons qualified to vote 
 for school committee to express their opinion at 
 the state election by voting " Yes " or " No," to 
 the question : " Is it expedient that municipal 
 suffrage be granted to women ? " Not one woman 
 in four voted in favor of the proposition, although 
 if suffrage has any traditionary power outside of 
 New York State, that power should have been 
 felt in Massachusetts. 
 
 In Maine, in 1893, the Senate passed a munic- 
 ipal suffrage bill, which was defeated in the House. 
 In 1895 the House passed a municipal suffrage 
 bill, which was defeated in the Senate. 
 
 In New Hampshire, in 1895, the House refused 
 a third reading to a municipal suffrage bill, by a 
 vote of 185 to 108. 
 
 In Connecticut, in 1895, the Senate rejected a 
 House municipal suffrage bill, while a presiden- 
 tial suffrage bill did not reach a vote. And 
 in Bhode Island a proposition for a suffrage 
 Constitutional amendment was referred to the 
 next legislature. 
 
 All these States had granted school suffrage and 
 could grant municipal suffrage by act of the 
 legislature. In 1893 municipal suffrage bills 
 were defeated in Minnesota, Missouri, North
 
 90 WOMAN AND THE REPUBLIC. 
 
 Dakota, and South Dakota. Full suffrage bills 
 were defeated in Arizona and New Mexico. A 
 township suffrage bill was defeated in Illinois, a 
 license suffrage bill in Connecticut, and a village 
 suffrage bill in New York. In that year, also, 
 the Supreme Courts gave decisions adverse to 
 suffrage laws. In 1893 a bill was defeated in the 
 United States Senate which proposed to give 
 women the municipal vote in the Cherokee Out- 
 let. The vote stood 40 to 9. 
 
 In Washington Territory the Legislature passed 
 a law conferring suffrage on woman in 1883 ; 
 but this was declared invalid by the courts in 1887, 
 because its nature was not sufficiently defined in 
 its title. It was re-enacted in 1888, and again 
 declared invalid by the United States Territorial 
 Court, on the ground that the Act of Congress 
 which organized the Territorial legislature did 
 not empower it to extend the suffrage to women. 
 In 1889 the people, in forming their State consti- 
 tution, decided against suffrage. 
 
 In 1894, in the election of November 6, Kansas 
 defeated a constitutional amendment granting 
 full suffrage, by a majority of 34,827. 
 
 In Iowa, in the same year, the Senate defeated 
 a proposition to submit a suffrage constitutional 
 amendment to the people. In 1895, bills for full 
 suffrage and for municipal suffrage again failed 
 to pass, and the question was submitted to the 
 people in 1896, and resulted in defeat.
 
 THE AMEEICAN REPUBLIC. 91 
 
 In 1895, also, a township suffrage bill was twice 
 defeated in Illinois. 
 
 In Indiana a proposition to strike the word 
 " male " out of the Constitution, was not even 
 reported from the committee to which it was 
 referred. 
 
 In the same year, in Kansas, a bill passed the 
 Senate which proposed to confer upon nine speci- 
 fied women the full suffrage in response to their 
 petition. The Senate also passed a bill con- 
 ferring upon women the vote for presidential 
 electors ; but neither ever reached a vote in the 
 House. In Michigan, the same year, a proposi- 
 tion to submit a constitutional amendment was 
 defeated, and a similar resolution in Missouri was 
 also defeated. Montana, North Dakota, South 
 Dakota, Washington, Wisconsin, and South Caro- 
 lina also defeated propositions to submit the ques- 
 tion to the people in 1895. 
 
 Since January, 1897, Nova Scotia, two Terri- 
 tories, and ten States have dealt with the suffrage 
 proposal, and all but one of these have rendered 
 adverse decisions. In Nova Scotia an old bill was 
 reconsidered, and a larger majority was obtained 
 against it. The territories are Arizona and Okla- 
 homa. The states in which it was defeated are 
 Iowa, Nevada, Nebraska, Kansas, Delaware, 
 Maine, Massachusetts, and California. The last 
 two had given it heavy defeats but a few months 
 previously. Indiana's Supreme Court handed 
 down an adverse decision. The favorable state
 
 92 WOMAN AND THE REPUBLIC. 
 
 was Washington, where the Legislature voted to 
 submit an amendment to the people next year. 
 
 Certainly, the question cannot be said not to 
 have received the attention that any vital subject 
 might have claimed, and the answers show that, 
 as comprehension of the meaning of democracy 
 has grown, and as liberty of thought and action 
 for men and women has increased, the proposi- 
 tion to cast an unequal burden, not upon a dis- 
 franchised class, but upon an unfranchised sex 
 which in every class has its own correlative and 
 equal duties, rights, and privileges, is losing 
 ground. 
 
 But, it is answered, look at the suffrage triumphs 
 in Utah State and Idaho. Let us look at them 
 more closely. It is my opinion that a few more 
 such triumphs would end in its utter overthrow. 
 Utah introduced suffrage by a simple legislative 
 act. Woman suffrage was abolished in Utah Ter- 
 ritory by Federal statute, because it was found to 
 be sustaining the Mormon Church and the insti- 
 tution of polygamy. The Suffragists profess to 
 hold in abhorrence churchly and polygamous rule. 
 Here was an opportunity for them to say to the 
 Government : " This is not what we meant by 
 suffrage, nor what we desire suffrage to be used 
 for. We approve this real disfranchisement." 
 Did they do anything of the kind ? Far from it. 
 In 1876 they passed the following : " Resolved, 
 That, the right of suffrage being vested in the 
 women of Utah by their constitutional and law-
 
 THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 93 
 
 ful enfranchisement, and by six years of use, we 
 denounce the proposition about to be again pre- 
 sented to Congress for the disfranchisement of 
 the women of that Territory, as an outrage on 
 the freedom of thousands of legal voters and a 
 gross innovation of vested rights ; we demand the 
 abolition of the system of numbering the ballots, 
 in order that the women may be thoroughly free 
 to vote as they choose, without supervision or dic- 
 tation ; and that the chair appoint a committee 
 of three persons, with power to add to their num- 
 ber, to memorialize Congress, and otherwise watch 
 over the rights of women of Utah in this regard 
 during the next twelvemonth." 
 
 In 1878 the report of Utah's governor con- 
 tained the following : " All voters must be over 
 twenty-one years of age, and must have resided 
 in the Territory six months, and in the precinct 
 one month. If males, they must be native born 
 or naturalized citizens of the United States, and 
 tax-payers in the Territory. A female voter need 
 not be a tax-payer, and if the wife, widow or 
 daughter of a native or naturalized citizen, need 
 not herself be native or naturalized ! " In 1892 
 the Utah Commission made to the Secretary of 
 the Interior a report which gave it as their 
 opinion that the sanction of the Church had been 
 withdrawn only temporarily in regard to polyga- 
 mous practices, and would be restored after a 
 political purpose had been served. That same 
 year a party was formed calling itself the " Lib-
 
 94 WOMAN AND THE REPUBLIC. 
 
 eral Party," and it carried Salt Lake City in the 
 first election in which National party lines were 
 drawn. This was one plank of its platform : 
 " Anxious as every Liberal is to see every differ- 
 ence adjusted, as anxious as they are to exercise 
 the utmost privileges accorded to the most favored 
 Americans, they remember what first caused clash- 
 ing here was the presence and control of an un- 
 yielding Theocracy and an im/perium in imperio, 
 arid they cannot fail to note that at the last con- 
 ference of this theocratic organization the old 
 assumptions were all renewed." They therefore 
 deprecated immediate Statehood. The bill grant- 
 ing it passed Congress in 1894. The Republican, 
 Democratic and Populist parties in Utah all 
 favored Statehood, and at the election following 
 the Constitutional Convention these parties all 
 inserted planks favoring free coinage of silver 
 16 to 1, demanding the return by government of 
 " real estate belonging to the Mormon Church," 
 and favoring the retention of woman suffrage. 
 
 The women of Utah were greatly in evidence 
 during the late presidential election. Several of 
 them were candidates for office ; but it is a sig- 
 nificant fact that, even in Utah, and even on the 
 Republico-Demo-Populist ticket, the women's vote 
 ran far behind that for the men. " The Salt Lake 
 Herald " for November 13, 1896, records the fact 
 that " Woman suffrage gave Utah to Bryan," and 
 in another place it says : " The women on both 
 tickets polled a small number of votes." Martha
 
 THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 95 
 
 Cannon, who was elected State Senator, obtained 
 8,167 votes. The men on the same ticket, elected 
 to the same office, polled, respectively, 9,875, 
 9,355, 9,244, 9,036 votes. Mrs. Cannon was on 
 the free silver ticket against her husband, who 
 was nominated for the same office on the Kepub- 
 lican ticket. Of the other candidates for the sen- 
 atorships on that ticket, four were men and one a 
 woman. The men's vote stood : 6,405, 6,197, 
 6,129, 5,961. The woman's was 4,692. The only 
 woman put up for State Representative ran 2,000 
 votes behind her ticket. One man only, " the ex- 
 dog-catcher " of the county, fell below her. The 
 woman's vote was 4,879, the dog-catcher's 4,325. 
 I copy from the " Salt Lake Herald " a few 
 sentences taken from an interview with Mrs. 
 Cannon, State Senator elect. When asked if she 
 was a strong believer in woman suffrage, she 
 answered : " Of course I am. It will help women, 
 and it will purify politics. Women are better 
 than men. Slaves are always better than their 
 masters." " Do you refer to polygamy ? " was 
 asked. " Indeed I do not," she answered. " I 
 believe in polygamy. My father and mother 
 were Mormons, and I am a Mormon. . . . A plural 
 wife isn't half as much of a slave as a single wife. 
 If her husband has four wives, she has three 
 weeks of freedom every single month. ... Of 
 course it is all at an end now, but I think the 
 women of Utah think, with me, that we were 
 better off in polygamy. . . . Sixty per cent, of
 
 96 WOMAN AND THE REPUBLIC. 
 
 the voters of this State are women. We control 
 the State. . . . What am I going to do with my 
 children while I am making the laws for the 
 State ? The same thing I have done with them 
 when I have been practicing medicine. They 
 have been left to themselves a good deal. . . . 
 Some day there will be a law compelling people 
 to have no more than a certain amount of chil- 
 dren, and the mothers of the land can live as they 
 ought to live." This is the character and opinion 
 presented by the highest State official that woman 
 suffrage has as yet given to the United States. 
 Comment upon it seems unnecessary, so far as it 
 would be needed to express the disgust of the 
 majority of American women at such sentiments 
 and such a situation. But has any Suffrage speak- 
 er or meeting denounced them, or deprecated the 
 result of the election? I have heard of none. 
 The National Suffrage Convention, which was 
 held in Iowa, in January, 1897, had the newly- 
 elected Populist women as guests of honor, and 
 held a jubilation over the two new Suffrage States 
 Utah and Idaho. Idaho has elected a Populist 
 woman or two. The vote in that State in favor 
 of the gold standard and that against woman suf- 
 frage tally within forty-two votes. 
 
 The instinctive alliance of the Woman Suffrage 
 movement with the uncertain and dangerous ele- 
 ments in our political life is well exemplified by 
 the campaign in California in connection with 
 the late presidential election. Mrs. Barclay Haz-
 
 THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 97 
 
 ard, who was almost the sole woman to express 
 publicly the opposition which the majority of 
 women felt, to the Suffrage idea, has given me the 
 following clear account of the conditions and re- 
 sult. She says : " If the advocates of Woman 
 Suffrage give a really frank and truthful answer 
 to the question, l What caused the defeat of the 
 movement in the late campaign in California?' 
 they must reply, ' Public sentiment was against 
 it.' In all fairness, there is no other reason. 
 Let us consider the conditions under which the 
 campaign was carried on. In the first place, the 
 Suffragists were most fortunate in choosing a 
 time when the whole country, as well as the 
 State of California, was torn by a question of 
 such vital importance to continued life and well- 
 being that all other matters were in danger of 
 going by default. 
 
 " Second : They were extremely well organized 
 and had command of a campaign fund of no mean 
 magnitude, which enabled them to keep in the 
 field such able and experienced agitators as Miss 
 Susan B. Anthony and the Rev. Anna Shaw, to 
 say nothing of numerous lesser lights. 
 
 " Third : There was absolutely no organized op- 
 position to the movement. The women who dis- 
 approved were as a rule entirely unaccustomed to 
 public speaking and were averse to coming for- 
 ward in any way. They remonstrated in private 
 but would not express their views openly. 
 
 " Fourth : Last but by no means least, our Suf- 
 7
 
 98 WOMAN AND THE REPUBLIC. 
 
 frage friends may be said to have had the press 
 of the State with them. The 'Los Angeles 
 Times ' (the most influential paper in the south- 
 ern part of the State) cannot be said to have aided 
 the movement, neither did it actively antagonize 
 it beyond admitting to its columns occasionally 
 letters from the ' Antis.' Yet for this small op- 
 position I heard an ardent advocate propose that 
 the Suffragists should boycott the paper ! 
 
 " Now, was ever a cause fought for under 
 conditions more conducive to success? 'Every 
 thing,' to use a current slang phrase, ' seemed to 
 be going their way.' They fully expected to win, 
 and those of us most opposed to their ideas in 
 private sadly conceded their probable victory. 
 The result when it came was all the more a sur- 
 prise and blow to the Suffragists and a welcome 
 reassurance to the friends of stability and con- 
 servatism. The figures show us that while the 
 stronghold of Populism, the South, went for the 
 measure, Alameda County turned the scale. One 
 must know California to realize what that means. 
 Alameda County contains the city of Oakland, 
 which is admittedly the most respectable and 
 moral city in California; it also contains the 
 town of Berkeley, which is the home of the Uni- 
 versity of California with its large faculty of 
 clever men, most of them from the East. Yes, it 
 was here in the stronghold of morals and intellect 
 that the "Woman Suffrage movement in Califor- 
 nia met its fate."
 
 THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 99 
 
 A question constantly and properly asked is: 
 " How does woman suffrage work where it is exer- 
 cised ? " So far as I can obtain information, where 
 it has worked at all, it has been detrimental to 
 women and to the State. 
 
 Of Wyoming there is much testimony to the 
 fact that during the Territorial period (1868- 
 '89) women did little voting, and played no ap- 
 preciable part in political life. Populism and 
 Free Coinage had begun to play a prominent part 
 in the whole section when Wyoming was admitted 
 to Statehood in 1890. At the election that fol- 
 lowed its admission there was a fusion that re- 
 sulted in the election of a Populist Governor, and 
 such was the riotous state of feeling that the Gov- 
 ernor was obliged to enter the State House 
 through a broken window. A year later this same 
 Governor, in his annual message,proclaimed woman 
 suffrage to be a notable success. As a proof, he 
 pointed to the fact that there were no criminals 
 in the State, and that the jails were empty. A 
 little research into official documents showed that 
 there might be other reasons, because the crim- 
 inals and those guilty of small offences were at 
 that time lodged in other States, and a year later, 
 when the authorities took possession of Laramie 
 Prison, given by the Government, and brought 
 home their evil-doers, they outnumbered, in pro- 
 portion to population, those of New Mexico, which 
 certainly should be a fair place for comparison. 
 
 For a time, women served on juries, and there
 
 100 WOMAN AND THE REPUBLIC. 
 
 is testimony to the fact that in many respects they 
 served well. But the practice of calling them was 
 soon suspended, and never has been renewed. 
 The only public office of consequence held by 
 them was bestowed by the Republicans but a year 
 or two ago, when Miss Reel was made State Su- 
 perintendent of Schools. In our late crucial elec- 
 tion, Wyoming and its woman suffrage gave their 
 voices for Populism and Free Coinage. The 
 scale hung in the balance. Why, if woman is a 
 greater political power for good than man, did 
 she not turn it for the principles which the State 
 had held were best ? The true test of the work- 
 ing of woman suffrage lies in a study of the legis- 
 lation connected with it, and this will be pre- 
 sented under its appropriate heading. 
 
 The scenes of shameful defiance of law and 
 order in the midst of which Colorado admitted 
 woman to the ballot are of more recent occurrence 
 and are fresh in memory. Populism never has 
 played in Colorado the part that it has in Kan- 
 sas, but " anything for free coinage " has been 
 the motto, and in abiding by it the State brought 
 in, and afterward turned out, Gov. Waite, of dis- 
 graceful memory. Again, last year, there was 
 Republican-Democratic-Populist fusion to beat 
 the gold standard, and much Populist rule was 
 again the result. One good authority writes 
 me that women " have introduced an element of 
 order and respectability upon election day that 
 was never observed before." He says he thinks
 
 THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 101 
 
 that, " as a whole, the people are very much sat- 
 isfied with woman suffrage and believe that it 
 has resulted beneficially in so far as it has made 
 politics a little better than they were." Another 
 says that " the influence of woman in politics did 
 not prevent the last Eepublican caucus of Arapa- 
 hoe Co. from being the most disgraceful in the 
 history of the State. The Convention, though 
 presided over by a woman, was completely in the 
 power of the * gang,' and sent to Pueblo the most 
 unworthy delegate ever sent." This gentleman 
 also says he has "heard numbers of intelligent 
 women state that they were sorry the ballot had 
 ever been given to them." Orderliness at the or- 
 dinary elections is expected here, without calling 
 upon women to act as " moral police " at the polls. 
 So quiet are they that it has been found practic- 
 able to place coffee-stands in charge of women 
 near some of the booths, when women have re- 
 quested it in the hope of preventing drunkenness. 
 A friend said to me some time ago : " You know 
 that I have been a Suffragist. I am most thor- 
 oughly converted. I have been three months in 
 Colorado. It is enough to cure any one." 
 
 A Denver correspondent of the " Chicago 
 Record," says : " The women of Colorado took no 
 active part in the recent campaign, but they did 
 not forget to vote. . . . The experiment of having 
 women in the State Assembly did not prove satisfac- 
 tory, at the last session, and it was quite generally 
 conceded that there would be no more women
 
 102 WOMAN AND THE REPUBLIC. 
 
 sent to that body ; but the Populists won in this 
 county, and on their ticket were three woman 
 candidates, so the coming session will again have 
 three women as members." 
 
 Of course the effect of suffrage in new States 
 is not a criterion of its effect elsewhere. And 
 whether the effect could be shown to be good or 
 bad, the main argument would not be touched. 
 The interesting thing to trace is the affiliations of 
 the movement. 
 
 In addition to those that have been mentioned 
 we recall the fact that in our recent political 
 campaign, four parties that nominated candidates 
 for President and Yice-President of the United 
 States, had in their conventions women as dele- 
 gates and members of committees. They were 
 the Populist, the Free-Silver, the Prohibition, 
 and the Socialist-Labor parties. The woman- 
 suffragists of the Prohibition party left the rock- 
 ribbed champion that had put a Suffrage plank in 
 every platform for years, in order to go with 
 Free Silver and Populism of the most extravagant 
 type. These parties also had Suffrage planks. 
 Altgeld and Debs, Coxey and Tillman were only 
 men, but Mary Ellen Lease furnished to the cam- 
 paign that strain of exalted fanaticism that at once 
 points out woman's glory and woman's danger. 
 
 The Suffrage indictment we have been consider- 
 ing is summed up as follows : " Now, in view of 
 this entire disfranchisement of one half of the 
 people of this country, their social and religious
 
 THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 103 
 
 degradation in view of the unjust laws above 
 mentioned, and because women do feel them- 
 selves aggrieved, oppressed, and fraudulently 
 deprived of their most sacred rights, we insist 
 that they have immediate admission to all the 
 rights and privileges which belong to them as 
 citizens of the United States." 
 
 Dr. Jacobi in " Common Sense " says : " To 
 this very day the survivors of that group of 
 pioneer women have an abstract way of stating 
 their claim which, to modern ears, sounds some- 
 what archaic." 
 
 She is not archaic when she says: "During 
 the long ages of class rule, which are just begin- 
 ning to cease, only one form of sovereignty has 
 been assigned to all men that, namely, over all 
 women. Upon these feeble and inferior compan- 
 ions all men were permitted to avenge the indigni- 
 ties they suffered from so many men to whom they 
 were forced to submit." 
 
 Mary A. Livermore is not archaic when in the 
 "North American Eeview" for February, 1896, 
 she says : " Her physical weakness, and not alone 
 her mental inferiority, has made her the subject 
 of man. Toiling patiently for him, cheerfully 
 sharing with him all his perils and hardships, the 
 unappreciated mother of his children, she has 
 been bought and sold, petted and tortured, ac- 
 cording to the whims of her brutal owner, the 
 victim everywhere of pillage, lust, war, and servi- 
 tude. And this statement includes all races and
 
 104 WOMAN AND THE REPUBLIC. 
 
 peoples of the earth from the date of their historic 
 existence." 
 
 I deny the truthfulness of the archaic accusation, 
 and denounce as an absurdity the bombastic 
 demand. I resent, as an unwarranted insult to 
 woman and to man, the still more bitter modern 
 representations of woman's condition and woman's 
 rights in this world, and especially in this Re- 
 public. They are simply false. 
 
 Archaic or modern, the dictums of the Suffrage 
 pioneers have been repeated at their every con- 
 vention. Overlaid with sentiment as much of the 
 Suffrage idea has become, contradictory as it is 
 in argument and in statement of fact, blended as 
 are its sophisms with the real progress of the 
 time, sincere and well-meaning as are many of 
 its advocates, sex antagonism is the corner-stone 
 of its foundation. The Woman's Rebellion is a 
 more complex affair than the American Revolu- 
 tion. The latter was the natural result of the 
 earnest and united protest, by a large majority of 
 men and women of the American Colonies, against 
 the tyranny of a monarchical government. The 
 former was a protest by a small band of women 
 and men against what they claimed to be uni- 
 versal tyranny. They attacked law and custom 
 all along the line, and the weapon forever kept in 
 order for the service was the demand for woman's 
 possession of the ballot. "Where she does not 
 possess it, and has not asked it, her influence is 
 mightiest. The relation of woman to the Republic
 
 THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 105 
 
 is a study worthy the most exalted patriotism. 
 In it is involved the broader question of her re- 
 lation to man and to the destiny of the race. 
 When told of her son's heroism in crossing the 
 Delaware, Mary Washington said, " George will 
 not forget the lessons I have taught him." 
 Through the mother's devoted faith and the son's 
 obedient power, the foundations were laid of a 
 government whose sole reliance must still be on 
 woman's inspiration and man's willing strength. 
 These are evidently God's instruments for our 
 Nation's upbuilding.
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 WOMAN SUFFRAGE AND PHILANTHROPY. 
 
 THE extinction of human bondage, more per- 
 haps than any other one event, has emphasized 
 the progress of the century about to close. Our 
 generation has witnessed the destruction of serf- 
 dom in Russia, and of slavery in Brazil and the 
 United States. Freedom was gained ; but of the 
 enlightened rulers through whom it was won, two 
 were assassinated and one was exiled to die. Sac- 
 rifice is still the price of liberty. 
 
 Much stress has been laid by Suffragists upon 
 the supposed fact that the Woman-suffrage move- 
 ment grew up as a logical conclusion from the 
 Anti-slavery movement. It grew out of it in the 
 sense of having been born in its midst ; but I be- 
 lieve that the truth will be found to be that it 
 was the most prolific source of the dissensions 
 that marred that noble cause, and was identified 
 with the small element that adopted wild notions 
 or used the notoriety gained by opposition to 
 slavery in order to propagate mischief. The con- 
 duct of those who later entered the Suffrage move- 
 ment hindered the public work of women from 
 the time of organized effort for the slave until 
 1 06
 
 WOMAN SUFFRAGE AND PHILANTHROPY. 107 
 
 slavery fell pierced to death amid the horrors of 
 a fratricidal war. I will take a brief survey of 
 the Anti-slavery struggle as it blended itself with 
 the doctrines of those abolitionists who were the 
 earliest and staunchest friends of the Suffrage 
 movement, and compare it with the statements 
 and claims of the women themselves. 
 
 I first refer to the " Life of James G. Birney," 
 by his son, General William Birney. James G. 
 Birney was an early friend of Henry B. Stanton, 
 husband of Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and with him 
 helped to lay the foundations of the Free-Soil 
 Party, and later the Republican Party. General 
 Birney says of his father : " In his visit to New 
 York and New England, in May and June, 1837, 
 Mr. Birney's chief object had been to restore 
 harmony among Anti-slavery leaders on doctrines 
 and measures, and especially to check a tendency, 
 already marked in Massachusetts, to burden the 
 cause with irrelevant reforms, real or supposed. 
 With this view he had attended the New England 
 Anti-slavery Convention held at Boston, May 30 
 to June 2 inclusive, accepted the position of one 
 of its vice-presidents, and acted as a member of its 
 committee on business. Rev. Henry C. Wright, the 
 leader of the No-Human-Government, Woman's- 
 Rights, and Moral-Reform factions, was a mem- 
 ber of the Convention, but received no appoint- 
 ment on any committee. On June 23, in the 
 'Liberator' [his newspaper], Mr. Garrison de- 
 nounced human governments. July 4, he spoke
 
 108 WOMAN AND THE REPUBLIC. 
 
 at Providence, as if approvingly, of the over- 
 throw of the Nation, the dismemberment of the 
 Union, and the dashing in pieces of the Church. 
 July 15, an association of Congregational ministers 
 issued a ' pastoral letter ' against the new doctrines. 
 August 2, five clergymen, claiming to represent 
 nine tenths of the abolitionists of Massachusetts, 
 published an < appeal ' which was directed more 
 especially against the course of the ( Liberator.' 
 August 3, the abolitionists of Andover Theologi- 
 cal Seminary issued a similar appeal. Among 
 the complaints were some against ' speculations 
 that lead inevitably to disorganization, anarchy, 
 unsettling the domestic economy, removing the 
 landmarks of society, and unhinging the machin- 
 ery of government.' A new Anti-slavery society 
 in Bangor passed the following resolution : ' That, 
 while we admit the right of full and free discus- 
 sion of all subjects, yet, in our judgment, indi- 
 viduals rejecting the authority of civil and pa- 
 rental governments ought not to be employed as 
 agents and lecturers in promoting the cause of 
 emancipation.' " 
 
 In his Autobiography, speaking of this time, 
 Frederick Douglass says: "I believe my first 
 offence against our Anti-slavery Israel was com- 
 mitted during these Syracuse meetings. It was 
 in this wise : Our general agent, John A. Collins, 
 had recently returned from England full of com- 
 munistic ideas, which ideas would do away with 
 individual property and have all things in com-
 
 WOMAN SUFFRAGE AND PHILANTHROPY. 109 
 
 mon. He had arranged a corps of speakers of 
 his communistic persuasion, consisting of John O. 
 Wattles, Nathaniel Whiting, and John Orvis, to 
 follow our Anti-slavery conventions, and while 
 our meeting was in progress in Syracuse Mr. Col- 
 lins came in with his new friends and doctrines 
 and proposed to adjourn our Anti-slavery discus- 
 sions and take up the subject of communism. To 
 this I ventured to object. I held that it was im- 
 posing an additional burden of unpopularity on 
 our cause, and an act of bad faith with the peo- 
 ple who paid the salary of Mr. Collins and were re- 
 sponsible for these hundred conventions. Strange 
 to say, my course in this matter did not meet the 
 approval of Mrs. Maria W. Chapman, an influen- 
 tial member of the board of managers of the 
 Massachusetts Anti-slavery society, and called out 
 a sharp reprimand from her, for insubordination to 
 my superiors." John O. Wattles labored hard to 
 introduce Woman Suffrage into the State Con- 
 stitution of Kansas. Mr. Collins worked for it in 
 California in the early days. Mrs. Chapman, who 
 had embraced Mr. Collins' s doctrines, was one of 
 the first pillars of the Suffrage movement. 
 
 Later, when Mr. Douglass determined to estab- 
 lish a newspaper and become its editor, he was 
 obliged to leave New England, " for the sake of 
 peace," he says, as his Anti-slavery friends op- 
 posed it, saying that it was absurd to think of 
 a wood-sawyer offering himself as an editor. In 
 Rochester, N. Y., he established "The North
 
 110 WOMAN AND THE REPUBLIC. 
 
 Star." He says, " I was then a faithful disciple 
 of William L. Garrison, and fully committed to 
 his doctrine touching the pro-slavery character of 
 the Constitution of the United States, also the 
 non-voting principle, of which he was the known 
 and distinguished advocate. "With him, I held it 
 to be the first duty of the non-slaveholding States 
 to dissolve the union with the slaveholding States, 
 and hence my cry, like his, was ' No union with 
 slaveholders.' After a time, a careful reconsider- 
 ation of the subject convinced me that there was 
 no necessity for l dissolving the union between the 
 northern and southern States ; ' that to seek this 
 dissolution was no part of my duty as an aboli- 
 tionist ; that to abstain from voting was to refuse 
 to exercise a legitimate and powerful means for 
 abolishing slavery ; and that the Constitution of 
 the United States not only contained no guarantees 
 in favor of slavery, but, on the contrary, was in 
 its letter and spirit an Anti-slavery instrument, 
 demanding the abolition of slavery as a condition 
 of its own existence as the supreme law of the 
 land. This radical change in my opinions pro- 
 duced a corresponding change in my action. 
 Those who could not see any honest reasons for 
 changing their views, as I had done, could not 
 easily see any such reasons for my change, and 
 the common punishment of apostates was mine. 
 . . . Among friends who had been devoted to 
 my cause were Isaac and Amy Post, William 
 and Mary Hallowell, Asa and Hulda Anthony,
 
 WOMAN SUFFRAGE AND PHILANTHROPY. Ill 
 
 and indeed all the committee of the Western New 
 York Anti-Slavery Society. They held festivals 
 and fairs to raise money, and assisted me in every 
 other possible way to keep my paper in circula- 
 tion while I was a non-voting abolitionist, but 
 withdrew from me when I became a voting 
 abolitionist." 
 
 The Posts, the Hallowells, and the Anthonys 
 were among the first to attach themselves to the 
 Suffrage movement. 
 
 The Grimke sisters, who were intensely in- 
 terested in the abolition agitation, followed Gar- 
 rison to the extreme, and adopted the socialistic 
 ideas with which his wing became to a large 
 extent identified. They were also early in the 
 Suffrage cause. In August, 1837, Whittier wrote 
 to them as follows : " I am anxious to hold a 
 long conversation with you on the subject of war, 
 human government, and church and family gov- 
 ernment. The more I reflect upon the subject 
 the more difficulty I find, and the more decidedly 
 am I of opinion that we ought to hold all these 
 matters aloof from the cause of abolition. Our 
 good friend, H. C. Wright, with the best inten- 
 tions in the world, is doing great injury by a 
 different course. He is making the Anti-slavery 
 party responsible in a great degree for his, to say 
 the least, startling opinions. . . . But let him 
 keep them distinct from the cause of emancipa- 
 tion. To employ an agent who devotes half his 
 time and talents to the propagation of ' no-human
 
 112 WOMAN AND THE REPUBLIC. 
 
 or no-family government ' doctrines in connection, 
 intimate connection, with the doctrines of aboli- 
 tion, is a fraud upon the patrons of the cause. 
 Brother Garrison errs, I think, in this respect. 
 He takes the 'no-church and no-government' 
 ground." 
 
 Mr. Garrison wrote to the American Anti- 
 slavery Society of his desire to crush the " dis- 
 senters," and Maria W. Chapman wrote : " Why 
 will they think they can cut away from Garrison 
 without becoming an abomination ? ... If this 
 defection should drink the cup and end all, we 
 of Massachusetts will turn and abolish them 
 as readily as we would the colonization society." 
 Henry B. Stanton wrote to William Goodell: 
 " I am glad to see that you have criticised Brother 
 H. C. Wright. I have just returned from a few 
 months' tour in eastern Massachusetts, and he has 
 done immense hurt there." A. A. Phelps, agent 
 of the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery society, wrote : 
 " I write you this in great grief, and yet I feel 
 constrained to do it. The cause of abolition here 
 was never in so dangerous and critical a position 
 before. Mutual jealousies on the part of the laity 
 and clergy are rampant ; indeed, so much so that, 
 let a clerical brother do what he will, it is re- 
 solved as a matter of course into a sinister motive ! 
 ... Of this stamp, more than ever before, is 
 friend Garrison. And Mrs. Chapman remarked 
 to me the other day that she sometimes doubted 
 which needed abolition most, slavery or the black-
 
 WOMAN SUFFRAGE AND PHILANTHROPY. 113 
 
 hearted ministry. For this cause alone we are on 
 the brink of a general split in our ranks. . . . And 
 as if to make a bad matter worse, Garrison in- 
 sists on yoking perfectionism, no-go vernmentism, 
 and woman-preaching with abolition, as part and 
 parcel of the same lump." 
 
 In 1840, Emerson, in his Amory Hall lecture, 
 said : " The Church or religious party is falling 
 from the Church nominal, and is appearing in 
 Temperance and non-resistant societies, in move- 
 ments of abolitionists and socialists, and in very 
 significant assemblies called Sabbath and Bible 
 conventions, composed of ultraists, of seekers, of 
 all the soul and soldiery of dissent, and meeting 
 to call in question the authority of the Sabbath, 
 of the priesthood, of the Church. In these move- 
 ments nothing was more remarkable than the 
 discontent they begot in the movers. . . . They 
 defied each other like a congress of kings, each of 
 whom had a realm to rule, and a way of his own 
 that made concert unprofitable." 
 
 These ideas blossomed, in due course of time, 
 into Socialistic communities. There was a dis- 
 tinctly Anti-slavery one at Hopedale, Massa- 
 chusetts. The founder, Adin Ballou, published a 
 tract setting forth the objects of the community, 
 from which I make the following extracts : " No 
 precise theological dogmas, ordinances, or cere- 
 monies are prescribed or prohibited. In such 
 matters all the members are free, with mutual 
 love and toleration, to follow their own highest
 
 114 WOMAN AND THE REPUBLIC. 
 
 convictions of truth and religious duty, answer- 
 able only to the great Head of the Church Uni- 
 versal. It enjoins total abstinence from all God- 
 contemning words and deeds ; all unchastity ; all 
 intoxicating beverages ; all oath-taking ; all slave- 
 holding and pro-slavery compromises ; all war and 
 preparations for Avar ; all capital and other vindic- 
 tive punishments ; all insurrectionary, seditious, 
 mobocratic, and personal violence against any 
 government, society, family, or individual; all 
 voluntary participation in any anti-Christian gov- 
 ernment, under promise of unqualified support, 
 whether by doing military service, commencing 
 actions at law, holding office, voting, petitioning 
 for penal laws, or asking public interference for 
 protection which can only be given by such force. 
 It is the seedling of the true democratic and social 
 Republic, wherein neither caste, color, sex, nor 
 age stands prescribed. It is a moral-suasion tem-^ 
 perance society on the teetotal basis. It is a 
 moral-power Anti-slavery society, radical and 
 Avithout compromise. It is a peace society on the 
 only impregnable foundation, that of Christian 
 non-resistance. It is a sound theoretical and prac- 
 tical "Woman's Rights Association." Among other 
 Suffragists, Abby Kelly Foster Avas resident at 
 Hopedale. Another community, at Northamp- 
 ton, Avas sometimes described as " Nothingarian." 
 
 Of the state of things at this time in the Anti- 
 slavery societies, General Birney says, " The no- 
 government men made up in activity what they
 
 WOMAN SUFFRAGE AND PHILANTHROPY. 115 
 
 lacked in numbers. While refusing for them- 
 selves to vote at the ballot-box, they voted in 
 conventions and formed coalitions with women 
 who wished to vote at the ballot-box." Mr. 
 Henry B. Stanton wrote to William Goodell: 
 " An effort was made at the annual meeting of 
 the Massachusetts society, which adjourned to- 
 day, to make its annual report and its action 
 subservient to the non-resistant movement, and 
 through the votes of the women of Lynn and 
 Boston it succeeded." A little later, January, 
 1839, Mr. Stanton wrote again to Mr. Goodell, as 
 follows : " I have taken the liberty to show your 
 letter to brothers Phelps, George Allen, George 
 Kussell, O. Scott, K. Colver, and a large number 
 of others, and they highly approve its sentiments. 
 They, with you, are fully of the opinion that it is 
 high time to take a firm stand against the no- 
 government doctrine. They are far from regard- 
 ing it merely as a humbug." John A. Collins, the 
 Anti-slavery agent referred to, founded a com- 
 munity at Skaneateles, N. Y., based upon the 
 following dictums : A disbelief in any special rev- 
 elation of God to Man, in any form of worship, 
 in any special regard for the Sabbath, in any 
 church, disbelief in all governments based on phys- 
 ical force, because they are " organized bands of 
 banditti," whose authority is to be disregarded, 
 a disbelief in voting, in petitioning, in doing mili- 
 tary duty, paying personal or property taxes, 
 serving on juries, testifying in " so-called " courts
 
 116 WOMAN AND THE REPUBLIC. 
 
 of justice. A disbelief in any individual property. 
 A belief that as marriage is designed for the hap- 
 piness of the parties to it, when such parties have 
 outlived their affections, the sooner the separa- 
 tion takes place the better, and that such separa- 
 tion shall not be a barrier to their again uniting 
 with any one. The community lived two and a 
 half years, and broke up with a debt of ten thou- 
 sand dollars. John O. Wattles, who was associ- 
 ated with Collins in the disturbance referred to 
 by Frederick Douglass, founded a community in 
 Logan County, Ohio, which was called " The 
 Prairie Home." They had no laws, no govern- 
 ment, no opinions, no principles, no form of 
 society, no test of admission. They professed to 
 take for their creed the dictum " Do as you would 
 be done by." The association broke up in an- 
 archy within a few months. Mr. Collins and 
 Mr. "Wattles were always promoters of the "Wo- 
 man-Suffrage movement. 
 
 Mr. Garrison said : " "We cannot acknowledge 
 allegiance to any human government. We can 
 allow no appeal to patriotism to revenge any na- 
 tional insult or injury." Again he said : " If a 
 nation has no right to defend itself against for- 
 eign enemies, no individual possesses that right in 
 his own case. . . . As every human government is 
 upheld by physical strength, and its laws are 
 enforced at the point of the bayonet, we cannot 
 hold office. We therefore exclude ourselves from 
 every legislative and judicial body, and repudiate
 
 WOMAN SUFFRAGE AND PHILANTHROPY. 117 
 
 all human politics, worldly honors, and stations 
 of authority." 
 
 Ralph Waldo Emerson says : " They withdraw 
 themselves from the common labors and competi- 
 tions of the market and the caucus. . . . They 
 are striking work, and calling out for something 
 worthy to do. . . . They are not good citizens, 
 not good members of society ; unwilling to bear 
 their part of the public burdens. They do not 
 even like to vote. They filled the world with 
 long beards and long words. They began in 
 words, and ended in words." 
 
 Charles Sumner said : " An omnibus-load of 
 Boston abolitionists has done more harm to the 
 Anti-slavery cause than all its enemies." 
 
 Angelina Grimke, writing at this time to Mr. 
 Weld, said : " What wouldst thou think of the 
 ' Liberator ' abandoning abolitionism as a primary 
 object, and becoming the vehicle of all these 
 grand principles ? " 
 
 In his published volume " Anti-slavery Days," 
 James Freeman Clarke says of the first Garrison 
 Anti-slavery society : " There was no such excite- 
 ment to be had anywhere else as at these meetings. 
 There was a little of every thing going on in them. 
 Sometimes crazy people would come in and insist 
 on taking up the time ; sometimes mobs would 
 interrupt the smooth tenor of their way ; but amid 
 all disturbance each meeting gave us an interest- 
 ing and impressive hour. I think that some of 
 the Garrisonian orators had the keenest tongues
 
 118 WOMAN AND THE REPUBLIC. 
 
 ever given to man. Stephen S. Foster and Henry 
 C. Wright, for example, said the sharpest things 
 that were ever uttered. Their belief was, that 
 people were asleep, and the only thing to be done 
 was to rouse them ; and to do this it was neces- 
 sary to cut deep and spare not. The more angry 
 people were made, the better." Again, in the 
 same volume, he says, after describing the politi- 
 cal Anti-slavery party : " While these political 
 anti-slavery movements were going on, the old 
 abolitionists, under the lead of Garrison, Phillips, 
 and others, had decided to oppose all voting 
 and all political efforts under the Constitution, 
 They adopted as their motto, 'No union with 
 slaveholders.' Their hope for abolishing slavery 
 was in inducing the North to dissolve the Union. 
 Edmund Quincy said the Union was ' a confed 1 
 eracy with crime, ' that ' the experiment of a 
 great nation with popular institutions had sig- 
 nally failed,' that ' the Republic was not a model 
 but a warning to the nations ; ' that ' the whole 
 people must be either slaveholders or slaves;' 
 that the only escape for ' the slave from his bond- 
 age was over the ruins of the American Church 
 and the American State : ' and it was the unalter- 
 able purpose of the Garrisonians to labor for the 
 dissolution of the Union." Freeman Clarke goes 
 on to say : " Wendell Phillips said on one occa- 
 sion, ' Thank God, I am not a citizen of the United 
 States.' As late as 1861 he declared the Union 
 a failure, and argued for the dissolution of the
 
 WOMAN SUFFRAGE AND PHILANTHROPY. 119 
 
 Union as * the best possible method of abolishing 
 slavery.' If the North had agreed to disunion and 
 had followed the advice of Phillips, ' To build a 
 bridge of gold to take the slave States out of the 
 Union,' slavery would probably be still existing in 
 all the Southern States. At all events, it was not 
 abolished by those who wished for disunion, but 
 by those who were determined at all hazards and 
 by every sacrifice to maintain the Union." 
 
 On April 8, 1839, Henry B. Stanton wrote to 
 William Goodell as follows : " At this very time, 
 and mainly, too, in that part of the country where 
 political action has been most successful, and 
 whence, from its promise of soon being triumphant, 
 great encouragement Avas derived by abolitionists 
 everywhere, a sect has arisen in our midst whose 
 members regard it as of religious obligation in no 
 case to exercise the elective franchise. This per- 
 suasion is part and parcel of the tenet which it is 
 believed they have embraced, that as Christians 
 have the precepts of the gospel of Christ, and the 
 spirit of God to guide them, all human govern- 
 ments, as necessarily including the idea of force to 
 secure obedience, are not only superfluous, but un- 
 lawful encroachments on the Divine government 
 as ascertained from the sources above mentioned. 
 Therefore they refuse to do anything voluntarily 
 that would be considered as acknowledging the 
 laAvful existence of human governments. Deny- 
 ing to civil governments the right to use force, 
 they easily deduce that family governments have
 
 120 WOMAN AND THE REPUBLIC. 
 
 no such right. They carry out the ' non-resistant ' 
 theory. To the first ruffian who would demand 
 our purse or oust us from our house, they are to 
 be unconditionally surrendered unless moral sua- 
 sion be found sufficient to induce him to desist 
 from his purpose. Our wives, our daughters, our 
 sisters, our mothers, we are to see set upon by the 
 most brutal, without any effort on our part except 
 argument to defend them ! And even they them- 
 selves are forbidden to use in defence of their 
 purity such powers as God has endowed them with 
 for its protection, if resistance should be attended 
 with injury or destruction to the assailant. In 
 short, the ' no-government ' doctrines, as they are 
 believed now to be embraced, seem to strike at 
 the root of the social structure, and tend, so far 
 as I am able to judge of their tendency, to throw 
 society into entire confusion and to renew, under 
 the sanction of religion, scenes of anarchy and 
 license that have generally hitherto been the off- 
 spring of the rankest infidelity and irreligion.' " 
 
 Again, he wrote : " The non-government doct- 
 rine, stripped of its disguise, is worse than Fanny- 
 Wrightism, and, under a Gospel garb, it is Fanny - 
 Wrightism with a white frock on. It goes to 
 the utter overthrow of all order, yea, of all purity. 
 When carried out, it goes not only for a com- 
 munity of goods, but a community of wives. 
 Strange that such an infidel theory should find 
 votaries in New England ! " 
 
 The editors of the "History of Woman Suf-
 
 WOMAN SUFFRAGE AND PHILANTHROPY. 121 
 
 frage " say in their opening chapter : " Among 
 the immediate causes that led to the demand for 
 the equal political rights of women, in this coun- 
 try, we may note these : First, the discussion in 
 several of the State legislatures of the property 
 rights of married women ; Second, the great edu- 
 cational work that was accomplished by the able 
 lectures of Frances Wright, on political, religious, 
 and social questions. Ernestine L. Kose, follow- 
 ing in her wake, equally liberal in her religious 
 opinions, and equally well-informed on the science 
 of government, helped to deepen and perpetuate 
 the impression Frances Wright had made on the 
 minds of unprejudiced hearers. Third, and above 
 all other causes of the Woman-Suffrage movement, 
 was the Anti-slavery struggle in this country." 
 By referring to the columns of the secular and 
 religious press of that period, we find that most of 
 the respectable and representative opinion of the 
 country was " prejudiced." Halls and assembly 
 rooms in all the cities were closed against Fanny 
 Wright, not only because her doctrines were 
 absolutely infidel and materialistic, but because 
 they Avere deemed subversive of law, order, and 
 decency. The better portion of society in the 
 United States was of one mind in its estimate of 
 " The Pioneer Woman in the Cause of Woman's 
 Eights," as she was called. In the columns of 
 " The Free Inquirer," a newspaper which she and 
 Eobert Dale Owen established and edited in New 
 York City in 1829, she attacked religion in every
 
 122 WOMAN AND THE REPUBLIC. 
 
 form, marriage, the family, and the State. She 
 pretended to no basis of scientific investigation, 
 but in a brilliant flood of words endeavored to 
 sweep away faith in the Bible, the home, the He- 
 public, in favor of negation, communism, free love. 
 I have place for but a single quotation from one 
 of her " Fables," published in the " Free Inquir- 
 er." It will show the drift of her work in one 
 direction : 
 
 " ' Is my errand sped, and am I a master on 
 earth \ ' said the infernal king (Pluto). ' Even as 
 I promised,' said the Fury. ' Love hath forsaken 
 the earth. Under the form of religion I aroused 
 the fears and commanded the submission of mor- 
 tals ; and our imp now reigns on earth in the place 
 of Love, under the form of Hymen.' Pluto smiled 
 grimly, and smote his thigh in triumph. ' Well 
 conceited, well executed, daughter of Night. Our 
 empire shall not lack recruits, now that innocence 
 is exchanged for superstition, and the true affec- 
 tion of congenial and confiding hearts is replaced 
 by mock ceremonies and compulsory oaths ! ' ' 
 
 Frances Wright had founded, in 1825, at Na- 
 shoba, Tennessee, a community that had for its 
 professed aim the elevation and education of the 
 Southern negroes. In describing her object, Miss 
 Wright said : " No difference will be made in the 
 schools between the white children and the chil- 
 dren of color, whether in education or in any other 
 advantage. This establishment is founded on the 
 principle of community of property and labor:
 
 WOMAN SUFFRAGE AND PHILANTHROPY. 123 
 
 these fellow-creatures, that is, the blacks, admitted 
 here, requiting these services by services equal or 
 greater, by filling occupations which their habits 
 render easy, and which to their guides and assist- 
 ants might be difficult or unpleasing." This form 
 of helotism flourished but three years on Ameri- 
 can soil. It is doubly interesting as containing 
 the germs of communism and anti-slavery that 
 blended themselves in the beginnings of a move- 
 ment for suffrage which was directly inspired by 
 Frances Wright. 
 
 The editors of the " Suffrage History " say that 
 " above all other causes of the suffrage movement, 
 was the Anti-slavery struggle in this country." 
 They add: "In the early Anti-slavery conven- 
 tions, the broad principles of human rights were 
 so exhaustively discussed, justice, liberty, and 
 equality so clearly taught, that the women who 
 crowded to listen, readily learned the lesson of 
 freedom for themselves, and early began to take 
 part in the debates and business affairs of all as- 
 sociations. And before the public were aroused 
 to the dangerous innovation, women were speak- 
 ing in crowded promiscuous assemblies. The 
 clergy opposed to the Abolition movement first 
 took alarm, and issued a pastoral letter, warning 
 their congregations against the influence of such 
 women. The clergy identified with Anti-slavery 
 associations took alarm also, and the initiative 
 steps to silence women, and to deprive them of 
 the right to vote in the business meetings, were
 
 1'24 WOMAN AND THE REPUBLIC. 
 
 soon taken. This action culminated in a division 
 in the Anti-slavery Association. The question of 
 woman's right to speak, vote, and serve on com- 
 mittee, not only precipitated the division in the 
 ranks of the American Anti-slavery society, in 
 1840, but it disturbed the peace of the World's 
 Anti-slavery Convention, held that same year in 
 London. In summoning the friends of the slave 
 from all parts of the tAvo hemispheres to meet in 
 London, John Bull never dreamed that woman, 
 too, would answer to his call. Imagine, then, the 
 commotion in the conservative Anti-slavery cir- 
 cles in England when it was known that half a 
 dozen of those terrible women who had spoken to 
 promiscuous assemblies, voted on men and meas- 
 ures, prayed and petitioned against slavery, women 
 who had been mobbed, ridiculed by the press, and 
 denounced by the pulpit, who had been the cause 
 of setting all the American Abolitionists by the 
 ears, and split their ranks asunder, were on their 
 way to England." 
 
 These quarrels, stirred up through the un- 
 seemly conduct of men and women, as we have 
 seen, they were willing to precipitate upon a con- 
 vention in a foreign land, a convention, too, 
 which had declared its desire not to receive them 
 as delegates. Upon the calling of the roll, the 
 meeting was thrown into excitement and confusion 
 on a subject foreign to that which brought them 
 together. Wendell Phillips eloquently pleaded 
 for the admission of the women. The English
 
 WOMAN SUFFRAGE AND PHILANTHROPY. 125 
 
 officers, while showing their personal courtesy, 
 begged to remind them that the Queen, and many 
 ladies in various stations, were represented by 
 male delegates, and that to admit the American 
 ladies would be to cast a slight upon their own 
 active members, many of whom were present. 
 During the heated discussion Mr. James Fuller 
 said : " One friend has stated that this question 
 should have been settled on the other side of the 
 Atlantic. Why, it was so settled, and in favor of 
 the women." Mr. James G. Birney answered : 
 " The right of the women to sit and act in all 
 respects as men in our Anti-slavery associations 
 was so decided in the Society in May, 1839, but 
 not by a large majority, which majority was 
 swelled by the votes of the women themselves. 
 I have just received a letter from a gentleman in 
 New York (Lewis Tappan) communicating the 
 fact that the persistence of the friends of promis- 
 cuous female representation in pressing that prac- 
 tice on the American Anti-Slavery society, at its 
 annual meeting on the 12th of last month, had 
 caused such disagreement that he, and others who 
 viewed the subject as he did, were deliberating the 
 question of seceding from the old organization." 
 
 Lewis Tappan, a founder of the American Mis- 
 sionary Society, was intimately connected with 
 his brother Arthur in all anti-slavery work. 
 Arthur was a founder of the American Tract 
 Society, and of Oberlin College, and a benefactor 
 of Lane Seminary. He established " The Ernan-
 
 126 WOMAN AND THE REPUBLIC. 
 
 cipator," and was president of the American Anti- 
 Slavery Society until compelled, with his brother 
 Lewis, to withdraw on account of the conduct of 
 the no-government men and women, and take 
 nearly all the Society with him. 
 
 When the vote was taken in the London meet- 
 ing the women were excluded on the ground that 
 "it being contrary to English usage, it would 
 subject them to ridicule and prejudice their 
 cause." 
 
 George Thompson then said : " I hope, as this 
 question is now decided, that Mr. Phillips Avill 
 give us the assurance that we shall proceed with 
 one heart and one mind." Mr. Phillips replied, 
 " I have no doubt of it. There is no unpleasant 
 feeling on our part. All we asked was an ex- 
 pression of opinion ; we shall now act with the 
 utmost cordiality." 
 
 But Mr. Phillips had reckoned without his host 
 and hostesses. Mr. Garrison had not been pres- 
 ent at the discussion, but he arrived at this junct- 
 ure and took his seat with the excluded dele- 
 gates. During a twelve-days' discussion of the 
 momentous cause that had called them together, 
 which he had professed especially to champion, 
 he took not the slightest part. Such was his 
 mistaken zeal that he was willing so to stultify 
 himself, and the women were willing to applaud 
 him in so doing. The spirit that looked upon 
 the American Constitution as " a covenant with 
 death and an agreement with hell " was there.
 
 WOMAN SUFFRAGE AND PHILANTHROPY. 127 
 
 The spirit that defied all authority and could 
 confound liberty of conscience with the formal 
 acts of courtesy between man and man, was there. 
 The spirit that took for its motto " You cannot 
 shut up discord" was there. And out of these 
 combined elements, trained in the school of 
 thought that had treated as tyranny the religious 
 and civil liberty of the United States, grew di- 
 rectly the Woman-Suffrage movement. Elizabeth 
 Cady Stanton was not a delegate. The delegates 
 were Abby Kelly, Esther Moore, and Lucretia 
 Mott. Mrs. Stanton was a bride, and in the im- 
 mediate party on this, their wedding trip, was 
 Mr. Birney, her husband's special friend. The 
 writers of the " History " say : " As the ladies 
 were not allowed to speak in the Convention, they 
 kept up a brisk fire, morning, noon, and night, on 
 the unfortunate gentlemen w r ho were domiciled 
 at the same house." Mrs. Stanton had not been 
 identified with any of these abolition quarrels ; 
 but she records that now she took her full share 
 of the "firing," notwithstanding her husband's 
 " gentle nudges under the table" and Mr. Birney's 
 ominous frowns across it. In the volume entitled 
 " Woman's Work in America," in a contribution 
 called "Woman in the State," written by Mrs. 
 Mary A. Livermore, she says : " The leaders in 
 the new [suffrage] movement, Lucretia Mott and 
 Mrs. Stanton, with their husbands," did thus and 
 so in originating it. Lucretia Mott's husband 
 was with her as a silent member of the conven-
 
 128 WOMAN AND THE REPUBLIC. 
 
 tions, but Elizabeth Cady Stanton's husband is 
 conspicuous for his absence from every list of 
 officers or attendants, from the inception of the 
 Suffrage movement until his death. He may have 
 been in perfect sympathy with his wife ; but 
 since the names of all the men already mentioned 
 in connection with the mad " no-civil, no-family, 
 no-personal government " movement, do appear, 
 and his does not, it is impossible not to challenge 
 Mrs. Livermore's statement. The last reference 
 to him in the " History " was as voting on the 
 occasion of the London meeting, in favor of the 
 women's admission to the World's Convention. 
 No mention is made of any speech, or of reasons 
 given. Certain it is, that while Mr. Garrison 
 became the conspicuous standard-bearer for the 
 Woman's Rights movement, Mr. Stanton became 
 one of the conspicuous bearers of the standard of 
 the Free Soil and Republican parties, which in- 
 cluded some of Anti-slavery's staunchest friends, 
 who were denounced by Garrison as its foes. 
 
 Thus it seems evident to me that the Woman- 
 Suffrage movement no more grew logically out 
 of the great discussions on human bondage which 
 began with Washington, Jefferson, Adams, Frank- 
 lin, Hamilton, and John Jay, and ended with 
 Sumner, Seward, and Lincoln, than the communes 
 of this country grew out of the utterances of the 
 Fathers based on the declaration that " All men 
 are created equal, and are endowed with certain
 
 WOMAN SUFFRAGE AND PHILANTHROPY. 129 
 
 inalienable rights, among which, are life, liberty, 
 and the pursuit of happiness." 
 
 It was among those whose mistaken zeal and 
 wild conduct were most mischievous, that the 
 Suffrage sentiment gathered head. Their lack of 
 judgment in defying the opinions of their own 
 sex, as well as of the other, their wrapt forget- 
 fulness of proprieties, which incited mobs and 
 proved a fine tool for the- frenzy of so-called social 
 reformers, brought contempt upon womanhood 
 as well as upon the cause they advocated. Women, 
 in the churches and out, were the strength of the 
 Anti-slavery movement ; but not these women. 
 As to the notable meeting in London, had the dele- 
 gates been the highest and largest minded and 
 most cultured of their sex, and had their cause 
 been the noblest, they and it would have been 
 dishonored by the method of its presentation. 
 American women of to-day would no more ap- 
 plaud such conduct than did those of fifty years 
 ago. Women have won lasting public favor and 
 place, while Suffrage has w r on an uneasy footing 
 by unenviable methods. 
 
 This survey enables us to understand what 
 otherwise would seem most strange, how the 
 women of the Suffrage movement, in claiming the 
 right of suffrage, ignored the duties and powers 
 based upon and connected with it those that 
 formed the defence which made possible any such 
 nation as ours. Added to the extreme Quaker 
 doctrine of peace-at-any-price, was the fanatical 
 9
 
 130 WOMAN AND THE REPUBLIC. 
 
 notion of the sinf ulness of all war, all use of phys- 
 ical force, and a cool assumption that opinion was 
 law. Mrs. Maria Chapman read, at one of the 
 early Woman's-Rights conventions, a string of 
 verses that reveals the absurdity of the situation. 
 It was in reply to " A Clerical Appeal," issued by 
 the Rev. Nehemiah Adams, whose " South-Side 
 View of Slavery " received more Anti-slavery 
 attention than it deserved, for it expressed only 
 his own fantastic ideas. In the " Appeal " he 
 maintains that women should paint in water colors 
 only, not in oil. Mrs. Chapman says : 
 
 " Our patriot fathers, of eloquent fame, 
 
 Waged war against tangible forms ; 
 Aye, their foes were men and if ours were the same, 
 
 We might speedily quiet their storms ; 
 But, ah I their descendants enjoy not such bliss, 
 The assumptions of Britain were nothing to this. 
 
 " Could we but array all our force in the field, 
 
 We'd teach these usurpers of power 
 That their bodily safety demands they should yield, 
 
 And in presence of womanhood cower ; 
 But alas ! for our tethered and impotent state, 
 Chained by notions of knighthood we can but debate." 
 
 " Oh ! shade of the prophet Mahomet, arise ! 
 
 Place woman again in her ' sphere,' 
 And teach that her soul was not born for the skies, 
 
 But to flutter a brief moment here. 
 This doctrine of Jesus, as preached up by Paul, 
 If embraced in its spirit will ruin us all." 
 
 Mention of Mrs. Chapman recalls her attitude
 
 WOMAN SUFFRAGE AND PHILANTHROPY. 131 
 
 toward Frederick Douglass and the further fact 
 that he became an advocate of Suffrage. In his 
 "Life and Times" he says: "I could not meet 
 her [Mrs. Stanton's] arguments except with the 
 shallow plea of ' custom,' ' natural division of 
 duties,' ' indelicacy of woman's taking part in 
 politics,' ' the common talk of woman's sphere,' 
 and the like, all of which that able woman 
 brushed away by those arguments which no man 
 has yet successfully refuted." Mr. Douglass 
 might have called to mind the fact, to the recog- 
 nition of which he had been so thoroughly con- 
 verted, and which he set forth on page 460 of his 
 book, when he wrote : " I insisted that the liberties 
 of the American people were dependent upon the 
 ballot-box, the jury-box, and the cartridge-box." 
 He forgot that Mrs. Stanton, in defiance of those 
 social laws that had weight with him, was asking 
 to use the first, to use partially the second, and 
 to ignore the third, on which both of the others 
 depend for continuance. 
 
 The " History " is dedicated to Harriet Martineau 
 (among other women) as one who influenced the 
 starting of the Suffrage movement. Turning to 
 Miss Martineau's " Society in America," published 
 in 1837, I find the following in her account of the 
 Anti-slavery movement in the United States : " The 
 progress of the Abolition question within three 
 years throughout the whole of the rural districts of 
 the North, is a far stronger testimony to the virtue 
 of the nation than the noisy clamor of a portion of
 
 132 WOMAN AND THE REPUBLIC. 
 
 the slaveholders of the South, and the merchant 
 aristocracy of the North, and the silence of the 
 clergy, against it. The nation must not be judged 
 of by that portion whose worldly interests are 
 involved in the maintenance of the anomaly ; nor 
 yet by the eight hundred flourishing Abolition 
 societies of the North, with all the supporters 
 they have in unassociated individuals. If it be 
 found that the five Abolitionists who first met in 
 a little chamber five years ago, to measure their 
 moral strength against this national enormity, 
 have become a host beneath whose assaults the 
 vicious institution is rocking to its foundations, 
 it is time that slavery was ceasing to be a national 
 reproach." 
 
 An observer who could be made to believe that 
 these five Abolitionists had really accomplished 
 more toward the overthrow of slavery than eight 
 hundred flourishing Abolition societies and their 
 outside supporters, and that the great body of 
 clergymen were silent, because they did not adopt 
 the metKods of the five who set themselves against 
 church and state, shows a credulity that leads one 
 to question the information and the conclusions 
 on which her judgment of the relation of Ameri- 
 can women to the Republic were based. 
 
 As a proof that when women entered into 
 public work in a womanly way they found sup- 
 port from the church and the Abolitionists, we 
 may point to perhaps the first organized charitable 
 and industrial work done among women in this
 
 WOMAN SUFFRAGE AND PHILANTHROPY, 133 
 
 country. In 1834 Mrs. Charles Hawkins, of New 
 York City, had convened in the Third Free Church, 
 corner of Houston and Thompson streets, a meet- 
 ing which resulted in the immediate formation of 
 " The Moral Reform Society." Clergymen who 
 were in sympathy with the movement addressed 
 the meeting. " The Female Guardian Society " 
 was founded by them a year later, and a news- 
 paper \vas established to present its claims. The 
 officers were women. They visited the Tombs, 
 and held weekly prayer-meetings. They secured 
 the legislation necessary to bring about the separa- 
 tion of men and women in the city prisons, and 
 the appointment of matrons for the women. In 
 1853 they procured an enactment " whereby dis- 
 sipated and vicious parents, by habitually neglect- 
 ing due care and provision for their offspring, 
 shall forfeit their natural claim to them, and 
 whereby such children shall be removed from 
 them and placed under better influences till the 
 claim oi the parents shall be re-established by 
 continued sobriety, industry, and general good con- 
 duct." They secured the passage of the Truant 
 Act, and the appointment of Truant Officers. 
 Mr. Lewis Tappan was not only the auditor 
 for the organization, but gave effective help by 
 suggestions that led to the establishment of the 
 first Home for the Friendless, of which there are 
 now seven in charge of the society. In 1854, 
 Industrial schools were added. Cooking, house- 
 keeping, kindergarten, and fresh-air work de-
 
 134 WOMAN AND THE REPUBLIC. 
 
 veloped rapidly. There are now twelve indus- 
 trial schools, where six thousand children are 
 taught. The report of the first semi-annual meet- 
 ing, held in Utica, N. Y., is in quaint contrast to 
 the reports of the first Suffrage meetings. They 
 say : " The utmost harmony and union of feeling 
 have characterized all the proceedings, and as we 
 looked around and saw the intelligence and piety 
 and moral worth that was assembled there, and 
 listened to the discussion of subjects of practical 
 importance, while every one was manifestly seek- 
 ing to know and do her duty, we could not 
 but feel that the most determined opposer of 
 ' women's meetings ' would have found nothing 
 to censure had he been present. There has been 
 no frivolity, no fanaticism, no disorder. "We are 
 sure that not a wife or mother was there who was 
 not at least as well disposed and prepared to dis- 
 charge her relative duties as she would have been 
 if she had kept at home." 
 
 Upon the great cause of Temperance, also, the 
 Woman-Suffrage movement early laid a blighting 
 hand. As Avill be remembered, total abstinence 
 was one of the doctrines to which many of 
 the no-government, common-property, men and 
 women were pledged. Western and Central New 
 York has been the birthplace of some of the wild- 
 est and most destructive movements that our 
 social life has witnessed. If the year 1848, which 
 saw the beginnings of the Woman-Suffrage move- 
 ment, was wonderful for revolutions and insurrec-
 
 WOMAN SUFFRAGE AND PHILANTHROPY. 135 
 
 tions the world over, the years that preceded 
 it were remarkable, especially in this country and 
 this State, for some of the maddest vagaries that 
 ever have been known here. There and then 
 arose the Shaker excitement, so fantastic that 
 only now and then was the outside world per- 
 mitted to know what was being done. Then and 
 there Fourierism found its most fruitful field, arid 
 of the dozen or more communities that were 
 started, several united in forming, near Rochester, 
 an Industrial Union. John Collins started a num- 
 ber of vague branches of what the Fourierites 
 called the " no-God, no-government, no-mar- 
 riage, no-money, no-meat, no-salt, no-pepper " sys- 
 tem of community. Here John H. Noyes, under 
 the guise of a new heaven on an old earth, es- 
 tablished his foul community at Oneida. There 
 and then the Millerite madness sent whole con- 
 gregations into the cemeteries, in white gowns, 
 to await the sounding of the trump of Gabriel. 
 There and then arose the great spiritualistic move- 
 ment that began in Wayne County with the Fox 
 family, became famous as the Eochester Knock- 
 ings, and blossomed into communities in which 
 " Free Love " grew out of " Individual Sover- 
 eignty." Then and there, in Wayne County, 
 Joseph Smith pretended that the Angel Maroni 
 had shown him, the Book of Mormon. Many of 
 these movements were in sympathy with Woman 
 Suffrage, and workers in them early found their 
 way into its ranks.
 
 136 WOMAN AND THE REPUBLIC. 
 
 In the midst of the Anti-slavery excitement, 
 secret temperance organizations were formed 
 among the women in New York State, known as 
 the " Daughters of Temperance." " Finding," as 
 they said, " that there was no law nor gospel in 
 the land," they became a law unto themselves, 
 and visited saloons, where they broke windows, 
 glasses, and bottles, and threw kegs and barrels 
 of liquor into the streets. A few were arrested, 
 but they were soon discharged. As time went 
 on, these secret organizations began to form them- 
 selves into regular bodies, and in January, 1852, 
 they assembled their delegates at Albany to 
 claim admission to the State Temperance organ- 
 ization, with no invitation or authority but their 
 own. Susan B. Anthony was the first speaker, 
 and when the convention decided not to hear her, 
 it was announced that they would withdraw and 
 hold a meeting where " men and women would 
 be equal," which they accordingly did. The 
 movement continued, until, three months later, 
 Miss Anthony called "The New York State 
 Temperance Convention," of which Mrs. Stanton 
 was elected President. Among the resolutions 
 that she introduced in her opening speech, were 
 these : that " no woman remain in the relation of 
 wife to a confirmed drunkard ; " that the State 
 should be petitioned so to " modify its laws affect- 
 ing marriage and the custody of children, that 
 the drunkard shall have no claims on either wife 
 or child ; " that " no liquor should be used for
 
 WOMAN SUFFRAGE AND PHILANTHROPY. 137 
 
 culinary purposes ; " and that " as charity begins 
 at home, let us withdraw from all associations for 
 sending the gospel to the heathen across the 
 ocean, for the education of young men for the 
 ministry, for the building up of a theological aris- 
 tocracy and gorgeous temples to the unknown 
 God, and devote ourselves to the poor and suffer- 
 ing about us. Let us feed and clothe the naked 
 and hungry, gather children into schools, and 
 provide reading-rooms and decent homes for 
 young men and women thrown alone upon the 
 world." The organization of " The Woman's New 
 York State Temperance Society " was formed, 
 and Mrs. Stanton was elected its President. She 
 issued an appeal to the women of the State, and 
 sent a letter to the Convention at Albany which 
 " was so radical, that its friends feared to read 
 it," but Susan B. Anthony finally did so. They 
 elected as delegates to the "Men's New York 
 State Temperance Convention," to be held in 
 Syracuse in June, Susan B. Anthony, Mrs. Amelia 
 Bloomer, and Gerrifc Smith. When they arrived 
 they were met by the Rev. Samuel J. May, who 
 told them that the men were shocked at the idea 
 of admitting them, and said that he was com- 
 missioned to beg them to withdraw. They 
 decided to present their credentials, and of course 
 the stormy scene which they had invited followed 
 their action. This scene was repeated in every 
 part of the State, the agitators figuring upon 
 their own platforms as martyrs to the noble
 
 138 WOMAN AND THE REPUBLIC. 
 
 causes of Anti-slavery, Temperance, and "Woman's 
 Bights. A single quotation from a letter of Miss 
 Anthony's, written at this time to the league, 
 shows that then, as now, the radical woman work- 
 ers for Prohibition were nothing if not political. 
 She says : " And it is for woman now, in the pres- 
 ent presidential campaign, to say to her father, 
 husband, or brother, ' If you vote for any candi- 
 date for any office whatever, who is not pledged 
 to total abstinence and the Maine law, we shall 
 hold you alike guilty with the rum-seller.' " 
 
 In January, 1853, a great mass-meeting was 
 held in Albany of all the State temperance 
 organizations. The Woman's society met in a 
 Baptist church, which was crowded at every ses- 
 sion. Miss Anthony presided. Twenty-eight 
 thousand women had signed petitions for prohib- 
 itory legislation. The rules of the House were 
 suspended, and the women were invited to present 
 them at the speaker's desk. They were then 
 invited to New York, and, in Metropolitan Hall, 
 addressed a large audience, as well as in the 
 Broadway Tabernacle and Knickerbocker Hall, 
 Brooklyn. In the next two months they made 
 successful tours of many cities of the State. But, 
 like Mr. Garrison, and Stephen Foster, and II. C. 
 Wright, the women thought that if they were not 
 attacking and being attacked there could be no 
 " progress " or " reform." They demanded di- 
 vorce for drunkenness, they denounced wine at 
 private tables, and called on the women to leave
 
 WOMAN SUFFRAGE AND PHILANTHROPY. 139 
 
 all church organizations where " clergymen and 
 bishops, liquor-dealers, and wine-bibbers, were 
 dignified and honored as deacons and elders." 
 They denounced the church for its u apathy," and 
 the clergy for their " hostility to the public action 
 of women," and they soon began to turn the 
 kindly feeling that was endeavoring to work with 
 them into enmity, and were of course denounced 
 in their turn. 
 
 The Society decided to invite men into their 
 organization, but not to allow them to hold office 
 or to vote. This they did for a year, after which 
 men were admitted to full membership. The first 
 annual meeting of the Woman's State Temper- 
 ance Society was held in Rochester, June 1, 1853, 
 Mrs. Stanton presiding, and the attendance was 
 larger than they had had at any time. In the 
 course -of the meetings a heated debate on the 
 subject of divorce took place. Mrs. Stanton and 
 Lucy Stone took the ground that it was " not only 
 woman's right, but her duty, to withdraw from 
 all such unholy relations," and Mrs. Nichols and 
 Antoinette Brown opposed them. 
 
 The men were admitted to this convention, and, 
 to use the words of the Avomen, " it was the policy 
 of these worldly-wise men to restrict the debate 
 on Temperance to such narrow limits as to dis- 
 turb none of the existing conditions of society." 
 This farce in reform soon came to an end, and the 
 following is the epitaph pronounced over it by its 
 founders : " The society, Avith its guns silenced
 
 140 WOMAN AND THE REPUBLIC. 
 
 on the popular foes, lingered a year or two, and 
 was heard of no more." On May 12, the friends 
 of Temperance met in Dr. Spring's Old Brick 
 Church, New York City. A motion was made 
 that all gentlemen present be admitted as dele- 
 gates. Dr. Trail, of New York, moved an amend- 
 ment, that the words " and ladies " be added, as 
 there were delegates present from the " Woman's 
 State Temperance Society." The motion was 
 carried, and the credentials were received. A 
 motion was then made that Susan B. Anthony be 
 added to the business committee, and all was in 
 an uproar at once. " Mayor Barstow twice asked 
 that another chairman be appointed, as he would 
 not preside over a meeting where woman's rights 
 was introduced, or women were allowed to speak." 
 Some of the gentlemen present said that '"the 
 ladies were there expressly to disturb." The 
 ministers present, like the laymen, were divided 
 in opinion in regard to the admission of the dele- 
 gates ; but the credentials were withdrawn, and 
 in due time the bearers of them withdrew also. 
 The writers of the " History " say : " Most of the 
 liberal men and women now withdrew from all 
 temperance organizations, leaving the movement 
 in the hands of time-serving priests and politicians, 
 who, being in the majority, effectually blocked 
 the progress of the reform for the time de- 
 stroying, as they did, the enthusiasm of the 
 women in trying to press it as a political meas- 
 ure." Comparing this work with their Anti-
 
 WOMAN SUFFRAGE AND PHILANTHROPY. 141 
 
 slavery campaign, they say : " When Garrison's 
 forces had been thoroughly sifted, and only the 
 picked men and women remained, he soon made 
 political parties and church organizations feel the 
 power of his burning Avords." It was the men 
 and women from whom he and his were sifted 
 who spoke the burning words that ended in burn- 
 ing deeds for the extinction of slavery ; and thus 
 it was with Temperance. There remained after 
 the "sifting" many societies, of one of which 
 William E. Dodge and President Mark Hopkins 
 were chief officers, and John B. Gough was prin- 
 cipal orator. 
 
 The writers of the " History " further say, in 
 regard to the death of their organization : 
 "Henceforward women took no active part in 
 temperance until the Ohio Crusade revived them 
 all over the nation, and gathered the scattered 
 forces into the Woman's National Christian Tem- 
 perance Union, of which Frances E. Willard is 
 President." This is a mistake, for women were 
 very active in connection with Temperance socie- 
 ties of which men were officers, and in organiza- 
 tions of their own, before and after the W. C. 
 T. U. was founded. The history of that great 
 body furnishes another proof of the injurious 
 effect of the Suffrage movement upon the cause 
 of Temperance. In 1872 a political Temperance 
 party was formed in Columbus, Ohio, which, four 
 years later, at Cleveland, became the Prohibition 
 Party. From the first, this party inserted a plank
 
 142 WOMAN AND THE REPUBLIC. 
 
 in its platform favoring universal suffrage, and 
 mentioning especially the extension of suffrage to 
 women. The W. C. T. U. was founded as a non- 
 denominational and non-partisan body, and was 
 divided and sub-divided into committees, each 
 having charge of a distinct branch of philan- 
 thropic work, which was by no means confined 
 solely to Temperance measures. This has given 
 the body great working strength, and its efforts 
 are well known. Everything except its Suffrage 
 labor has had rich reward. I was present at the 
 Metropolitan Opera House in New York City 
 (in 1886, I think), and witnessed with amazement 
 the high-handed fashion in which an organization 
 whose constitution forbade political coalition was 
 handed over to the Prohibition Party, pledged to 
 give aid and comfort. The division and bitter 
 feeling that resulted were a serious injury to the 
 cause of Temperance. In her contribution to the 
 volume entitled "Woman's Work in America," 
 Miss Willard says : " After ten years' experience, 
 the women of this Crusade became convinced 
 that until the people of this country divide at the 
 ballot-box, on the foregoing [Temperance] issue, 
 America can never be nationally delivered from 
 the dram-shop. They therefore publicly an- 
 nounced their devotion to the Prohibition Party, 
 and promised to lend it their influence, which, 
 with the exception of a very small minority, they 
 have since most sedulously done." Writing in 
 "The Outlook" for June 27, 1896, Lady Henry
 
 WOMAN SUFFRAGE AND PHILANTHROPY. 143 
 
 Somerset says, in closing a sketch of Frances 
 Willard : " The Temperance cause, in spite of 
 the gigantic strides it has made of late years 
 toward success, is still relegated to the shadowy 
 land of unpopular and supposedly impracticable 
 and visionary reform." 
 
 The Temperance cause is not relegated to a 
 shadowy land, but has just taken, in many places, 
 notably in New York State, another gigantic 
 stride toward success. Prohibition has proved 
 less faithful to the women than Miss Willard said 
 the women had proved to it ; for, in the struggle 
 to survive the attack upon its life made by Popu- 
 lism in 1896, it refused to re-insert the Woman- 
 Suif rage plank in its platform. Mrs. Helen Gougar 
 bolted with the Populists. Mrs. Boole, of New 
 York, in behalf of the W. C. T. U., moved the re- 
 insertion in the platform of the Woman-Suffrage 
 plank, which had been stricken out when it was 
 decided to make prohibition the only issue. 
 Amidst great confusion, Mrs. Boole was obliged 
 to withdraw her motion, and when she changed 
 her claim from that for a plank in the platform 
 to one for a resolution which declared the conven- 
 tion to be in favor of Woman Suffrage, it was 
 accepted by the Committee on Resolutions, and 
 adopted with only a few dissenting votes. In 
 view of the fact that the party has had a Suffrage 
 plank since 1872, when it began to be, this does 
 seem like a turning of the back rather than of the 
 cold shoulder. When to its motto "No secta-
 
 144 WOMAN AND THE REPUBLIC. 
 
 rianism in religion, no sectionalism in politics," 
 the W. C. T. U. added " No sex in citizenship," it 
 fastened itself to a principle that has not pro- 
 gressed. Its Temperance work "for God and 
 home and native land " has gone on ; but the 
 political alliance and effort have alike proved 
 futile. A striking proof of this fact is seen in the 
 reports of the non-political sections of the "W. C. 
 T. U. itself. Police matrons have been placed 
 through their petitions, and educational and phil- 
 anthropic work that is directly in the line of doing 
 away with the liquor evil, and is worthy of high 
 praise, has been accomplished. Miss Willard, 
 in her article already alluded to, reports that 
 " under the leadership of Mrs. Mary H. Hunt, the 
 W. C. T. U. has secured laws requiring scientific 
 temperance instruction in thirty States." The 
 number is now forty-two, and I cannot help be- 
 lieving that Mrs. Hunt must feel more hopeful of 
 the favorable results to temperance of well- 
 directed effort to influence those who have the 
 power to execute the laws they pass, than Miss 
 Willard has reason to feel for its success through 
 prohibition and the forceless votes of women 
 whose power in philanthropy is fully recognized 
 and cheerfully acknowledged. Women talk as if 
 the solid vote of their sex would be cast in favor 
 of temperance. The census of 1890 reveals the 
 fact that there were in that year three times as 
 many woman hotel-keepers as in 1870, and seven 
 times as many saloon-keepers and bar-tenders.
 
 WOMAN SUFFRAGE AND PHILANTHROPY. 145 
 
 Again, in the Nation's greatest crisis, "Woman 
 Suffrage showed itself to be the antipodes of 
 woman's progress. Those of us whose once sable 
 locks are now silvered are content to wear the 
 badge of years, when we remember that we were 
 permitted to live long enough ago to have felt the 
 expansion of soul, the fervor of loyal love, the 
 melting power of an overwhelming universal 
 sorrow and a united joy, which filled the mighty 
 days during a war for freedom and for the life of 
 theEepublic. Most of the women of the land 
 were working with a devotion that spared neither 
 strength nor life. "What was the "Woman-Suffrage 
 Association doing ? I answer in their own words. 
 In their " History," they say : " While the most 
 of women never philosophize on the principles that 
 underlie national existence, there were those in 
 our late war who understood the political signifi- 
 cance of the struggle : the ' irrepressible conflict 
 between freedom and slavery ; between national 
 and State rights.' They saw that to provide lint, 
 bandages, and supplies for the army, while the 
 war was not conducted on a wise policy, was labor 
 in vain ; and while many organizations, active, 
 vigilant, self-sacrificing, were multiplied to look 
 after the material wants of the army, these few 
 formed themselves into a National Loyal League 
 to teach sound principles of government, and to 
 impress on the nation's conscience, that ' freedom 
 to the slaves was the only way to victory.' " They 
 further say : " Accustomed as most women had 
 
 10
 
 146 WOMAN AND THE REPUBLIC. 
 
 been to works of charity, to the relief of outward 
 suffering, it was difficult to rouse their enthusiasm 
 for an idea, to persuade them to labor for a 
 principle. They clamored for practical work, 
 something for their hands to do ; for fairs, sewing 
 societies to raise money for soldiers' families, for 
 tableaux, readings, theatricals, anything but con- 
 ventions to discuss principles and to circulate 
 petitions for emancipation. They could not see 
 that the best service they could render the army 
 was to suppress the rebellion, and that the most 
 effective way to accomplish that was to transform 
 the slaves into soldiers. The "Woman's Loyal 
 League voiced the solemn lessons of the war ; 
 universal suffrage, and universal amnesty." 
 
 The Woman's Loyal League " voiced " the fact 
 that the professional agitators of the Suffrage 
 movement were not patriots. Again they filled 
 the land with words, while all the others of their 
 sex were blazoning the page of their country's 
 history with deeds of the noblest self-sacrifice, the 
 most gentle daring. When we remember with 
 what infinite patience the great emancipator was 
 waiting for the hour when in his wisdom he dis- 
 cerned that he could "best save the Union by 
 emancipating all the slaves," we realize what 
 added sorrow may have been pressed upon his 
 heart by the foolish petitions that the League 
 were rolling up by the hundred thousand and 
 sending to a Congress that was powerless to heed 
 them if it would. Statesmen and Generals were
 
 WOMAN SUFFRAGE AND PHILANTHROPY. 147 
 
 staggered by the stupendous task of guiding a 
 great people and saving the Union in the most 
 powerful rebellion ever known ; but these few 
 women knew from the beginning that " the war 
 was not conducted on a wise policy," and that to 
 provide for the army was " labor in vain." They 
 joined the great body of fault-finders and talkers, 
 and lifted not a finger in practical work. And 
 they are the women who would fain vote for and 
 become America's rulers ! The " other women," 
 who were narrow-minded enough to prepare 
 stores and raise money for the army, and do such 
 concrete work as nursing in the hospital and on 
 the field, had been busy for nearly two years 
 when the Suffrage women bestirred themselves 
 in their own way. In March, 1863, they issued 
 the following appeal to the " Loyal Women of the 
 Nation," which I quote at length because it is an 
 excellent example of their methods, which " began 
 in words and ended in words : " 
 
 " In this crisis of our country's destiny, it is the 
 duty of every citizen to consider the peculiar 
 blessings of a republican form of government, and 
 decide what sacrifices of wealth and life are de- 
 manded for its defence and preservation. The" 
 policy of the war, our whole future life, depends 
 on a clearly-defined idea of the end proposed, and 
 the immense advantages to be secured to ourselves 
 and all mankind by its accomplishment. ~No 
 mere party or sectional cry, no technicalities of 
 constitution or military law, no mottoes of craft
 
 148 WOMAN AND TIIE REPUBLIC. 
 
 or policy, are big enough to touch the great heart 
 of a nation in the midst of revolution. A grand 
 idea, such as freedom or justice, is needful to 
 kindle and sustain the fires of a high enthusiasm. 
 At this hour the best word and work of every 
 man and woman are imperatively demanded. To 
 man, by common consent, is assigned the forum, 
 camp, and field. What is woman's legitimate 
 work, and how she may best accomplish it, is 
 worthy of our earnest counsel with one another. 
 We have heard many complaints of the lack of 
 enthusiasm among Northern women ; but, when 
 a mother lays her son on the altar of her country, 
 she asks an object equal to the sacrifice. In nurs- 
 ing the sick and wounded, knitting socks, scrap- 
 ing lint and making jellies, the bravest and best 
 may weary if the thoughts mount not in faith to 
 something beyond and above it all. v *Work is 
 worship only when a noble purpose fills the soul. 
 Woman is equally interested and responsible with 
 man in the final settlement of this problem of self- 
 government ; therefore let none stand idle specta- 
 tors now. When every hour is big with destiny, 
 and each delay but complicates our difficulties, it 
 is high time for the daughters of the Revolution, 
 in solemn council, to unseal the last will and tes- 
 tament of the Fathers lay hold of their birth- 
 right of freedom, and keep it a sacred trust for 
 all coming generations. To this end we ask the 
 Loyal Women of the Nation to meet in the church 
 of the Puritans (Dr. Cheever's), New York, on
 
 WOMAN SUFFRAGE AND PHILANTHROPY. 149 
 
 Thursday, the 14th of May next." This was signed 
 by Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Susan B. An- 
 thony, in behalf of the Woman's Central Com- 
 mittee. 
 
 Having set forth their belief that by common 
 consent the forum, the camp, and the field were 
 assigned to men, these women secured a forum 
 from which to promulgate advice and direction to 
 the men who were indeed allowed possession of 
 the camp and the field. After a speech, in which, 
 among other things, Miss Anthony said: "In- 
 stead of suppressing the real cause of the war, it 
 should have been proclaimed, not only by the 
 people, but by the President, Congress, Cabinet, 
 and every military commander," she presented 
 resolutions, which included this : 
 
 "Resolved: that there can never be a true 
 peace in this Republic until all the civil and politi- 
 cal rights of all citizens of African descent and all 
 women are practically established." 
 
 The reading of the resolutions was followed by 
 one of the long, acrimonious debates with which 
 those who read the reports of their conventions 
 are familiar. They resented it bitterly when 
 Mrs. Hoyt, of "Wisconsin, said : " The women of 
 the North were invited here to meet in conven- 
 tion, not to hold a Temperance meeting, not to hold 
 an Anti-slavery meeting, not to hold a "Woman's 
 Bights convention, but to consult as to the best 
 practical way for the advancement of the loyal 
 cause. We have a great many very flourishing
 
 150 WOMAN AND THE REPUBLIC. 
 
 Loyal Leagues throughout the "West, and we have 
 kept them sacred from Anti-slavery, Woman's 
 Eights, Temperance, and everything else, good 
 though they may be. In our League we have 
 several objects in view. The first is, retrench- 
 ment in household expenses, to the end that the 
 material resources of the Government may be, so 
 far as possible, applied to the entire and thor- 
 ough vindication of its authority. Second, to 
 strengthen the loyal sentiment of the people at 
 home, and instil a deeper love of the National flag. 
 The third and most important object is to write 
 to the soldiers in the field, thus reaching nearly 
 every private in the army, to encourage and 
 stimulate him in the way that ladies know how 
 to do." After expressions of strong resentment, 
 those who had called the convention returned to 
 their generalizing in regard to the duty and in- 
 fluence of woman, and to denunciations of the 
 Government for its conduct of the war. The res- 
 olutions which had called forth the strictures 
 were accepted, and Miss Anthony announced that 
 "The resolution recommending practical work 
 was not yet prepared." It was written at a busi- 
 ness meeting following, and read thus : 
 
 " Eesolved, that we, loyal women of the nation, 
 do hereby pledge ourselves one to another, in a 
 Loyal League, to give support to the Government 
 in so far as it makes the war a war for freedom." 
 
 If the Government of the United States had re- 
 ceived no more practical pledges, from no more
 
 WOMAN SUFFRAGE AND PHILANTHROPY. 151 
 
 loyal hearts than these, there would have been 
 little reward for the patriotic devotion that laid 
 down life in defence of the Union. A sentiment 
 that was often expressed by the Suffragist was 
 that as woman had no vote she could not properly 
 be called upon to be loyal. The "practical" 
 work finally accomplished was the gathering of 
 another monster petition, in which they told 
 President Lincoln that " Northern power and loy- 
 alty can never be measured until the purpose of 
 the war be liberty to man." To the close of the 
 war they did nothing but sign such petitions. 
 
 I turn to Dr. Brockett's great book, " Woman 
 in the Civil War," and I find recorded the names 
 and the work of four hundred and eighty-four 
 women who gave invaluable and honorable 
 special service, some of them even to the sacrifice 
 of life itself ; and of all this number, only a half 
 dozen are known in Suffrage annals. 
 
 Cure by ballot has been the one and only 
 remedy suggested by Suffrage conventions for all 
 the ills, real or imaginary, that are endured by 
 women. As long ago as 1854, in a convention in 
 Philadelphia, they uttered the same sentiment. 
 In commenting upon Mrs. Jane G. Swisshelm's 
 book, " Half a Century," they say : " While ever 
 and anon during the last forty years Mrs. Swiss- 
 helm has seized some of these dilettante literary 
 women with her metaphysical tweezers, and held 
 them up to scorn for their ridicule of the Woman 
 Suffrage conventions, yet in her own recently
 
 152 WOMAN AND THE REPUBLIC. 
 
 published work, in her mature years, she vouch- 
 safes no words of approval for those who have 
 inaugurated the greatest movement of the cent- 
 uries. ... It is quite evident from her last pro- 
 nunciamento that she has no just appreciation of 
 the importance and dignity of our demand for 
 justice and equality. A soldier without a leg is a 
 fact so much more readily understood than all 
 women without ballots, and his loss so much more 
 readily comprehended and supplied, that we can 
 hardly blame any one for doing the work of the 
 hour, rather than struggling a lifetime for an 
 idea. Hence it is not a matter of surprise that 
 most women are more readily enlisted in the sup- 
 pression of evils in the concrete, than in advocat- 
 ing the principles that underlie them in the 
 abstract, and thus ultimately choosing the broader 
 and more lasting work." 
 
 In her " Reminiscences," contributed to the 
 " History," Mrs. Emily Collins says : " From 1858 
 to 1869 my home was in Rochester, K. Y. There, 
 by brief newspaper articles and in other ways, I 
 sought to influence public sentiment in favor of 
 this fundamental reform. In 1868 a society was 
 organized there for the reformation of abandoned 
 women. At one of its meetings I endeavored to 
 show how futile all their efforts would be while 
 women, by the laws of the land, were made a 
 subject class." 
 
 This was typical action. Thus it was in Anti- 
 slavery, thus in Temperance, thus in the Civil
 
 WOMAN SUFFRAGE AND PHILANTHROPY. 153 
 
 War, and thus it has been with general reforms. 
 "What Suffragists have deemed to be an abstract 
 " right " has prevented them from taking active 
 part in any efforts put forth to end a concrete 
 wrong. As time goes on, this spirit becomes 
 more injurious, because progress is carrying phil- 
 anthropy into higher fields of moral action, and 
 in so doing is carrying it away from and above 
 the plane where rests the ballot-box. While Suf- 
 frage effort is directed toward keeping all issues 
 in the political arena, the trend of legislation is 
 to take them out of politics. By the public votes 
 of men and the private votes and public appeals 
 of women, philanthropic and educational matters 
 are being removed from the uncertainties and 
 fluctuations of party action. As they are thus 
 brought out of the sphere where woman is power- 
 less and into that in which it is natural for her 
 to act, the whole force of sympathy, and her 
 ability to picture and to pursue an ideal, are 
 finding exercise and are hastening the day 
 when there will be no slavery, no drunkenness, no 
 war, and no violation of woman's chastity. Dr. 
 Jacobi, in her volume, says : " Why should we 
 wonder at the low tone which habitually pre- 
 vails in relation to public affairs, when the 
 women who stand as guardians at the fountain 
 sources and household shrines of thought are 
 trained to believe that there are no Rights, but 
 only Privileges, Expediencies, Immunities ? Can 
 those who cower before the public ridicule which
 
 154 WOMAN AND THE REPUBLIC. 
 
 greets the enunciation of the Eights of Women ; 
 who are habituated to stifle generous impulses for 
 their own larger freedom at the authoritative dic- 
 tation of the men they see in power, can such 
 women be relied upon to nerve the Nation's heart 
 for generous deeds ? " Who were trained by 
 women at the fountain sources and household 
 shrines? The very men whom they now see in 
 " authoritative dictation." And so well did they 
 train them that when both are called upon to 
 nerve the nation's heart for generous deeds, they 
 act together the trainer and the trained moved 
 by the same magnetic impulse of a noble devotion. 
 It is purely gratuitous to assume, because women 
 generally have discredited the dogma of Woman 
 Suffrage, that they have therefore no just concep- 
 tion of rights. Women are as ambitious, as self- 
 assertive, as are men. They deal more naturally 
 with abstractions, and are more tenacious of pur- 
 pose. They are impatient of hindrance, and it is 
 inconsistent with facts to infer that they have been 
 " stifling generous impulses for their own larger 
 freedom," at the dictation of their own sons. The 
 executive power and wisdom of these sons they 
 feel to be the very thing they most desire for 
 them, a reward for their own abounding faith and 
 love. Privileges, Expediencies, and Immunities 
 are their Eights. How well fitted such rights are 
 to enable them to nerve the Nation's heart was 
 seen in the great crisis we have been considering, 
 when the ignoble dogma of Suffrage caused its
 
 WOMAN SUFFRAGE AND PHILANTHROPY. 155 
 
 believers to fail in generous impulse and to stand 
 aloof in the time of a supreme need. 
 
 I cannot agree with Dr. Jacobi that a low tone 
 habitually prevails in relation to public affairs. 
 The guards freshly thrown about the ballot, and 
 the greater watchfulness over entrance to citizen- 
 ship, are two of the most obvious advances at this 
 moment.
 
 CHAPTEK Y. 
 
 WOMAN SUFFRAGE AND THE LAWS. 
 
 IN the fourth and fifth counts of the Declaration 
 of Sentiments, the Suffragists say : " Having de- 
 prived her of this first right of a citizen, the elec- 
 tive franchise, thereby leaving her without repre- 
 sentation in the halls of legislation, he has op- 
 pressed her on all sides." " He has made her, if 
 married, in the eye of the law, civilly dead." 
 
 The following four counts all refer to a mar- 
 ried woman's civil deadness ; and I will give them 
 in order, and then consider the five counts to- 
 gether : 
 
 " He has taken from her all right in property, 
 even to the wages she earns." " He has made her, 
 morally, an irresponsible being, as she can com- 
 mit many crimes with impunity, provided they be 
 done in the presence of her husband." " In the 
 covenant of marriage, she is compelled to promise 
 obedience to her husband, he becoming, to all in- 
 tents and purposes, her master the law giving 
 him power to deprive her of her liberty, and to 
 administer chastisement." " He has . so framed 
 
 the laws of divorce, as to what shall be proper 
 156
 
 WOMAN SUFFRAGE AND THE LAWS. 157 
 
 causes, and, in case of separation, to whom the 
 guardianship of the children shall be given, as to 
 be wholly regardless of the happiness of women 
 the law, in all cases, going upon a false supposi- 
 tion of the supremacy of man, and giving all 
 power into his hands." 
 
 That the women did not find themselves, as 
 might be supposed from their charges, living 
 under the edicts of the Middle Ages, is proved by 
 their hunt through statute-books for such of the 
 eighteen grievances as relate to laws. They also 
 say that " while they had felt the insults incident 
 to sex, in many ways, as every proud thinking 
 woman must, yet they had not in their own ex- 
 perience endured the coarser forms of tyranny 
 resulting from unjust laws ; but had souls large 
 enough to feel the wrongs of others." Until they 
 knew what those wrongs were, it would seem 
 they could hardly have felt for them intelligently. 
 It would seem, too, that the great body of Ameri- 
 can women were also unaware that they had been, 
 and were still being, legally and morally robbed, 
 enslaved, and murdered. In fact, Suffrage 
 speakers have been compelled to account for their 
 unconcern by considering it the result of long 
 subjection, and at the same time have had to 
 claim that these stupid beings were fit to rule 
 with and over men. 
 
 While the counts contain concrete statements, 
 the closing clause " the law in all cases, going 
 upon a false supposition of the supremacy of man,
 
 158 WOMAN AND THE REPUBLIC. 
 
 and giving all power into his hands" sets forth 
 an abstract idea in justification of which they 
 furnish no proof. In the counts as they stood in 
 the Declaration of Sentiments, the general laws 
 were not accused of doing any injustice, personal 
 or civil, to an unmarried woman, except in refer- 
 ence to the one matter of withholding the vote, 
 which they claimed was wrong because she had 
 an inalienable right to the ballot and was subject 
 to tax. Not a personal law did they ask to have 
 changed for her protection. They recognized the 
 fact that, unless she was married, a woman in the 
 United States stood upon a legal equality with 
 man. The hue and cry in regard to a married 
 woman was, that she was not treated as iffemme 
 sole. Thefemme sole could make contracts and 
 wills, sue and be sued, and do all and sundry in 
 her own name that her brother could do. With 
 a married woman the situation was different. 
 "Will any one contend that in the past the married 
 woman has been held in less honor than the un- 
 married ? Can it be thought for a moment that 
 the law-makers expressed their contempt for 
 wives and mothers, and their respect for daughters 
 and sisters who were unmarried ? Tradition and 
 fact, poetry and prose, romance and reality, all 
 go to prove that the reverential feeling of the 
 world has gathered about the wife and the 
 mother. The men who made those laws turned 
 for their ideals of abstract justice to their mothers' 
 faith and teaching ; and it seems most incongruous
 
 WOMAN SUFFRAGE AND THE LAWS. 159 
 
 to assume, as do the Suffrage arguments, that, 
 while all the laws relating to women were tyran- 
 nical at some point, those in regard to married 
 women were the ones wherein men embodied 
 their most cruel and revengeful feeling. It also 
 appears to be a gratuitous assumption that what- 
 ever was different in the legal treatment of men 
 and women came from man's belief in his own 
 supremacy, especially toward the wife into whose 
 hands he had committed the keeping of his home 
 and his honor. 
 
 In 1881, after more than thirty years of agi- 
 tation of the subject, the Suffrage leaders said : 
 " The condition of married women under the 
 laws of all countries has been essentially that 
 of slaves, until modified in some respects, within 
 the last quarter of a century, in the United 
 States." And again they said : " The change from 
 the old common law of England, in regard to the 
 civil rights of women, from 1848 to the advance 
 legislation in most of the Northern States in 1880, 
 marks an era both in the status of woman as a 
 citizen and in our American system of jurispru- 
 dence. "When the State of New York gave 
 married women certain rights of property, the 
 individual existence of the wife was recognized, 
 and the old idea that husband and wife are one, 
 and that one the husband, received its death-blow. 
 From that hour the statutes of the several States 
 have been steadily diverging from the old Eng- 
 lish codes. Most of the Western States copied
 
 160 WOMAN AND THE REPUBLIC. 
 
 the advance legislation of New York, and some 
 are now even more liberal." 
 
 This sentence contains another of the con- 
 stantly recurring instances of the methods by 
 which the Suffrage mind jumps to unwarranted 
 conclusions. "When the State of New York gave 
 married women certain property rights, it recog- 
 nized their legal existence in a new way, but not 
 their individual existence that had been recog- 
 nized by every act of law and custom, from the 
 registry of their birth to that of their marriage or 
 their death. Socially and civilly, every woman 
 in the United States had had opportunity to make 
 her individuality felt, and if there was any differ- 
 ence in advantage in respect of this, it was sup- 
 posed to lie with the married woman. So true is 
 this, that Mrs. Stanton and Mrs. Mott had to hunt 
 for oppressive laws, and most of the women of 
 this land have no real sense of the great and 
 liberal change in laws concerning married women 
 since 1848. I am no more approving of or admir- 
 ing the old English common law, or the canon 
 law, concerning women, than I am approving of 
 or admiring the law that came to light recently 
 in the Transvaal and would have allowed the 
 torture of Jameson and his men, who, as a matter 
 of fact, were allowed to go almost unpunished. 
 The law of the Dutch Government in Africa 
 belonged to the Middle Ages; their conduct 
 belonged to to-day. I only believe that at the 
 time when it was possible for one man to frame
 
 WOMAN SUFFRAGE AND THE LAWS. 161 
 
 for another man such laws of physical and mental 
 torment as every code reveals, their laws for 
 women were the best they could devise, and were 
 those which led to the freedom of the women of 
 to-day. A law of England -still favors only the 
 first-born son, and he only because he is the first- 
 born. What wonder that girls have been denied 
 succession ; and what an evidence of man's desire 
 to show favor and not the " insult incident to 
 sex," that he has placed woman on thrones upon 
 which he has had to sustain her by main force. 
 
 There is no need that I should darken my pages 
 with the English laws concerning married women. 
 The Suffrage leaders have spread them abroad ; 
 Blackstone says they were intended for woman's 
 protection and benefit, and adds the remark, " So 
 great a favorite is the female sex with the laws of 
 England." If I quoted them, I should be con- 
 strained to quote barbarous laws concerning men 
 of the same era, and to note the lack of all laws 
 concerning the brute creation ; for neither of 
 these matters is touched by Suffrage writers. 
 Dr. Jacobi is willing to say that " in the eye of 
 the law, the married white woman in the North 
 was as devoid of personality as the African slave 
 in the South," and she also says : " By another 
 error of interpretation, certain laws which remain 
 on the statute-book, or which have been recently 
 added, have been considered so peculiarly favor- 
 able to women, that they are thought to prove a 
 legislative^tendency to grant special immunities to 
 ii
 
 162 WOMAN AND THE REPUBLIC. 
 
 women so long as they consent to remain unfran- 
 chised." Does she mean to say that the law- 
 makers have asked the women if they would 
 consent to remain unfranchised ? I thought that 
 leaving them unfranchised without asking their 
 consent was, in Suffrage eyes, the very front of 
 the offending. The laws that remain on the 
 statute-book, and those that have been recently 
 added, go to prove to my mind that the old laws 
 were meant to be generous as well as just; 
 second, that the trend of legislation is peculiarly 
 favorable to woman ; and, thirdly, that those 
 laws which between man and man might be looked 
 upon as offsets to suffrage equality, between 
 man and woman could not be so considered. 
 They were, therefore, proper immunities for per- 
 sons whose consent was not asked through the 
 vote because, in the nature of the difference be- 
 tween the sexes, a prime requisite for compli- 
 ance was lacking. Dr. Jacob! goes on to say : 
 " The fear has been expressed that these ' immu- 
 nities ' and ' privileges ' would be forfeited were 
 the franchise conferred. And this fear has 
 actually been advanced as an argument as the 
 basis of protest against equal suffrage." Either 
 the law is tyrannical to women, or it is not. If 
 Suffrage leaders are actually talking of its privi- 
 leges and immunities to women, and trying to 
 explain them away, we may leave the burden of 
 proof to them. But as to the gist of her remark 
 in regard to the connection between legal privi-
 
 WOMAN SUFFRAGE AND THE LAWS. 163 
 
 leges and equal suffrage : Fear of losing the legal 
 immunities that are granted to both married and 
 unmarried women on account of their attitude as 
 wards of the State when they are not able to 
 assume the first duty implied in giving up the 
 wardship that of physical defence to themselves 
 and others is a most legitimate fear, and is a 
 sound reason for protest against equal suffrage. 
 "Wrapped up with the legal privileges of women 
 are those of their children the rights of minors. 
 For boys, special privileges cease at the age of 
 twenty-one. For girls, they do not. Legal 
 equality would set the boy and the girl on the 
 same level at once. The law of equality could 
 know no such thing as " exemption " for the 
 unmarried woman, or " dower right " or " main- 
 tenance " for the married woman that would not 
 be equally binding on both husband and wife. In 
 Germany, rich American women are maintaining 
 their land-poor husbands under legal stress, " in 
 the style to which they have been accustomed," 
 because the law of Germany is " equal " in respect 
 to property maintenance of husband and wife. 
 In Ohio, where Suffrage agitation has been per- 
 sistent, the legislature in 1894 passed an act 
 " enabling a husband, as well as a wife, to sue and 
 obtain alimony pending divorce proceedings." 
 
 We began by talking of legal disabilities, and, 
 led by the Suffragists themselves, are already 
 discussing legal immunities. 
 
 The editors of the " History " say : " The laws
 
 164 WOMAN AND THE REPUBLIC. 
 
 affecting woman's civil rights have been greatly 
 improved during the past thirty years, but the 
 political demand has made but questionable prog- 
 ress, though it must be counted as the chief influ- 
 ence in modifying the laws. The selfishness of 
 man was readily enlisted in securing woman's 
 civil rights, while the same element in his char- 
 acter antagonized her demand for political equal- 
 ity." If it was his selfishness that procured 
 woman civil rights and privileges, was it his 
 unselfishness that formerly denied them? The 
 fact that the States that granted them first, and 
 most fully, are the ones where Suffrage has made 
 least progress, suggests the injustice of the 
 charge. 
 
 But a question of real interest is, must the 
 political demand made by women be counted as 
 the chief influence in modifying the laws ? 
 
 In 1836, Judge Hertell presented, in the New 
 York Legislature, a bill to secure property rights 
 to married women, which had been drawn up 
 under the supervision of the Hon. John Savage, 
 Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, and the Hon. 
 John C. Spencer, one of the revisers of the statutes. 
 In its behalf Ernestine Kose and Paulina Wright 
 Davis circulated a petition, to which they gained 
 only five signatures among their own sex. 
 
 Ernestine Eose was a Polish Jewess who had 
 renounced all faith with her own. She was an 
 extreme communist, and before coming here to 
 labor for Liberalism and Woman Suffrage, she
 
 WOMAN SUFFRAGE AND THE LAWS. 165 
 
 had presided over a body called " An Association 
 of all Classes of all Nations, without distinc- 
 tion of sect, sex, party condition, or color." 
 Paulina Wright Davis, gifted though she was, 
 was a radical of an extreme type. How much 
 the character of the advocates had to do with 
 their failure, it is impossible to say, but it appears 
 to be another proof of the evil influence of Suf- 
 frage action upon woman's progress that so good 
 a work should have been in hands so unfitted for 
 it. The bill did not become a law. Mrs. Rose 
 records that she continued to send petitions with 
 increased numbers of signatures until 1848-49 ; 
 that from 1837 to 1848 she addressed the New 
 York Legislature five times, and a good many 
 times after the latter date. That she was not 
 recognized as an aid to legislation seems evident 
 from the testimony that follows. 
 
 In the previous chapter I have quoted the edi- 
 tors of the " History " as saying that the first 
 thing that led them to demand political rights 
 was the discussion, in several of the State legis- 
 latures, of these property questions in regard to 
 married women. Another proof that they did 
 not inspire the early laws is seen in the following 
 extracts from a letter from the Hon. Georsre 
 
 O 
 
 Geddes, written to Mrs. Gage, in 1880, and an- 
 swering her question as to who was responsible for 
 the Married-Woman's Property-Rights bill, which 
 was passed in 1848. He said : 
 
 " I have very distinct recollections of the whole
 
 166 WOMAN AND THE REPUBLIC. 
 
 history of this very radical measure. Judge Fine, 
 of St. Lawrence, was its originator, and he gave 
 me his reasons for introducing the bill. He said 
 that he married a lady who had some property of 
 her own, which he had, all his life, tried to keep 
 distinct from his, that she might have the benefit 
 of her own, in the event of any disaster happening 
 to him in pecuniary matters. He had found much 
 difficulty, growing out of the old laws, in this 
 effort to protect his wife's interests. ... I, too, 
 had special reasons for desiring this change in the 
 law. I had a young daughter, who, in the then 
 condition of my health, was quite likely to be left 
 in tender years without a father, and I very much 
 desired to protect her in the little property I 
 might be able to leave. ... I believe this law 
 originated with Judge Fine, without any outside 
 prompting. On the third day of the session he 
 gave notice of his intention to introduce it, and 
 only one petition was presented in favor of the 
 bill, and that came from Syracuse, and was due 
 to the action of my personal friends. . . . "We all 
 felt that the laws regulating married women's, as 
 well as married men's, rights demanded careful 
 revision and adaptation to our times and to our 
 civilization. ... In reply to your inquiries in re- 
 gard to debates that preceded the action of 1848, 
 I must say I know of none, and I am quite sure 
 that in our long discussions no allusion was made 
 to anything of the kind." 
 It would thus appear that neither Mrs. Gage,
 
 WOMAN SUFFRAGE AND THE LAWS. 167 
 
 nor Mrs. Stan ton, nor Miss Anthony knew the 
 names of the proposer and defenders of the bill 
 that opened the way in New York for all the 
 liberal legislation that has folloAved, and thirty 
 years after its passage they inquired whether any 
 debates had preceded it. Certainly, then, their 
 own had not. It is also evident how much " self- 
 ishness " prompted the bill. 
 
 In a pamphlet published by the New York 
 "Woman-Suffrage Association to report their pro- 
 ceedings during the Constitutional Convention of 
 1894, it is recorded that Mr. F. B. Church, of 
 Alleghany, presented an appeal from his county 
 asking for the suffrage. In the course of his re- 
 marks he said : " Sir, beginning in 1848, the male 
 citizens of the State of New York, not at the 
 clamor of the women, as I understand it, but actu- 
 ated by a sense of justice, began to remove the dis- 
 abilities under which women labored at that time. 
 Gradually, from that time on, the barriers had 
 been stricken away, until, in 1891, I believe, the 
 last impediments were removed." 
 
 In 1844, Rhode Island had passed property laws 
 for married women. In 1848-9 Connecticut and 
 Texas, as well as New York, did so, apparently 
 uninfluenced by anything except their " sense 
 of justice." In 1850-'52 Alabama and Maine 
 passed such laws. In 1853 New Hampshire, 
 Indiana, Wisconsin, and Iowa changed their laAA^s 
 in this respect. They moved forward in this 
 reform, as did the other States, before there
 
 168 WOMAN AND THE REPUBLIC. 
 
 was even a beginning of Suffrage agitation in 
 them. 
 
 In 1847, Mrs. C. J. II. Nichols, who afterward 
 became a Suffrage worker, addressed to the voters 
 of Vermont a series of editorials setting forth the 
 property disabilities of women. In October of 
 that year, Hon. Larkin Mead, moved, he said, by 
 her presentation, introduced a bill into the Senate, 
 which, becoming a law, secured to the wife real 
 estate owned by her at marriage, or acquired by 
 gift, devise, or inheritance during marriage, with 
 the rents, issues, and profits, as against any debts 
 of the husband ; but to make a sale or conveyance 
 of either her realty or its use valid, it must be the 
 joint act of husband and wife. She might by last 
 will and testament dispose of her lands, tene- 
 ments, hereditaments, and any interest therein 
 descendable to her heirs, as if " sole." Mrs. 
 Nichols says that in 1852 she drew up a petition 
 signed by more than two hundred business men 
 and tax-paying widows, asking the Legislature to 
 make women voters in school matters. Mrs. 
 Nichols's report is clear, sound, definite, and she 
 seems to have been of real service, and to have 
 won what she sought. She says, " Up to 1850 I 
 had not taken position for suffrage, although I had 
 shown the absurdity of regarding it as un- 
 womanly." She appears to have done a great 
 deal of clever as well as earnest and spirited talk- 
 ing in the West, after she had " taken position for 
 suffrage," and she reports that, when she removed
 
 WOMAN SUFFRAGE AND THE LAWS. 169 
 
 to Kansas, her claims were for " equal educational 
 rights and privileges in all the schools and institu- 
 tions of learning fostered or controlled by the 
 State." " An equal right in all matters pertain- 
 ing to the organization and conduct of the com- 
 mon schools." "Recognition of the mother's 
 equal right with the father to the control and 
 custody of their mutual offspring." " Protection 
 in person, property, and earnings for married 
 women and widows, the same as for men." The 
 first three were fully granted, the fourth was 
 changed as to " personal service." In her plead- 
 ing for " political rights," she was associated with 
 John O. Wattles, and the amendment they pro- 
 posed was defeated in the Legislature. 
 
 Petitions for " Woman's Right " and changes of 
 the laws were circulated in Massachusetts as early 
 as 1848. In 1849, a year after the first Suffrage 
 Convention, Ohio, Maine, Indiana, and Missouri, 
 had passed laws giving to married women the 
 right to their own earnings. A " Memorial " was 
 sent by the Suffrage Association to the Ohio 
 Constitutional Convention in 1850, from which I 
 take the following : " We believe the whole 
 theory of the common law in relation to woman 
 is unjust and degrading." (Then follows political 
 injustice.) " We would especially call your atten- 
 tion to the legal condition of married women." 
 (Then follow general statements and quotations 
 from the common law.) The attention of the 
 memorialists was called by the proper authorities
 
 170 WOMAN AND THE REPUBLIC. 
 
 to the fact that the statute laws of Ohio had 
 radically changed the general matters charged. 
 In answering comment, Mrs. Coe said : " The com- 
 mittee were perfectly aware of the existence of 
 the statutes mentioned, but did not see fit to incor- 
 porate them in the petition, not only on account 
 of their great length, but because they do not at 
 all invalidate the position which the petition affects 
 to establish the inequality of the sexes before the 
 law ; because if the wife departs from the condi- 
 tions of the statutes, and thus comes under the 
 common law, they are against her." She then 
 adds : " There are other laws which might be 
 mentioned, which really give woman an apparent 
 advantage over man ; yet, having no relevancy to 
 the subject in the petition, we did not see fit to 
 introduce them." 
 
 The ignorance displayed here is phenomenal. 
 Common law is operative only in the absence of 
 statute law. The Ohio statute (as with all statutes) 
 superseded the common law ; and if the woman 
 " departs from the condition of the statute," she 
 suffers the penalty prescribed therein, without 
 reference to her previous position before the law. 
 
 One of the earliest demands made by the Suf- 
 frage Association was for a law that should allow 
 of absolute divorce for drunkenness; and this was 
 soon followed by demands for divorce for other 
 causes. In presenting a petition to the New York 
 Legislature, pressing these measures, Mrs. Stanton 
 addressed the Assembly, and from her remarks I
 
 WOMAN SUFFRAGE AND THE LAWS. 171 
 
 take the following words : " Allow me to call the 
 attention of that party now so much interested in 
 the slave of the Carolinas to the similarity in his 
 condition and that of the mothers, wives, and 
 daughters of the Empire State. The negro has no 
 name. He is Cuffy Douglas, or Cuffy Brooks, 
 just whose Cuffy he may chance to be. The 
 woman has no name. She is Mrs. Richard Eoe, 
 or Mrs. John Doe, just whose Mrs. she may chance 
 to be. Cuffy has no right to his earnings ; he 
 cannot buy or sell, nor make contracts, nor lay up 
 anything that he can call his own. Mrs. Roe has 
 no right to her earnings ; she can neither buy, 
 sell, nor make contracts, nor lay up anything that 
 she can call her own. Cuffy has no right to his 
 children; they may be bound out to cancel a 
 father's debts of honor. The white unborn child, 
 even by the last will of the father, may be placed 
 under the guardianship of a stranger, a foreigner. 
 Cuffy has no legal right to existence ; he is sub- 
 ject to restraint and moderate chastisement. Mrs. 
 Roe has no legal existence ; she has not the best 
 right to her person. The husband has the power 
 to restrain and administer moderate chastisement. 
 The prejudice against color, of which we hear so 
 much, is no stronger than that against sex. It is 
 produced by the same cause, and manifested very 
 much in the same way. The negro's skin and the 
 woman's sex are both prima facie evidence that 
 they were intended to be in subjection to the 
 white Saxon man. The few social privileges which
 
 172 WOMAN AND THE REPUBLIC. 
 
 the man gives the woman, he makes up to the 
 negro in civil rights. The woman may sit at the 
 same table and eat with the white man ; the free 
 negro may hold property and vote." 
 
 It is difficult for our thought to reach the low 
 level from which this comparison is made. It 
 ignores all the moral and spiritual conceptions 
 that gave rise to and hallow marriage. But 
 looking upon marriage as a mere financial com- 
 pact, and taking the laws even as they then 
 were, a few things may be said. " Cuflfy has no 
 name that he can call his own." Elizabeth Cady 
 Stanton has her own baptismal name, the name 
 of her honored father, and that of her honored 
 husband, and the opportunity to make those names 
 more her own by personal achievement than any 
 one's else. Her mother, her father, her husband, 
 and her son are as dependent upon her for pre- 
 serving the character and distinctiveness of that 
 name, as she is upon them. Why Lucy Stone 
 should have put inconvenience and indignity upon 
 both herself and her husband for the sake of con- 
 tinuing to wear her father's name instead of as- 
 suming her husband's, I never could understand. 
 She did not share the name she gave her child. 
 And there is another distinction between the 
 nameless Cuffy and the trebly-named Saxon 
 woman. The husband's name was not thrust 
 upon her. By uttering the simple monosyllable 
 " No," she could decline to wear it. It was only 
 as she consented to be mistress of a husband's
 
 WOMAN SUFFRAGE AND THE LAWS. 173 
 
 heart and home that she passed from the condi- 
 tion offeinme sole and acquired a title and an 
 additional name. " Cuffy has no right to his 
 earnings." This would be of less consequence to 
 Cuffy if he had a right to his master's earnings. 
 When a right to another's earnings goes along 
 with the mutual relation toward a home of master 
 and mistress, the difference between Cuffy and 
 Mrs. Hoe is unspeakable. " Cuffy cannot buy or 
 sell, make contracts, nor lay up anything that he 
 can call his own." If Cuffy had the right to pre- 
 vent his master from buying, selling, making con- 
 tracts, or laying up anything that he could call 
 his own until Cuffy's wants had been provided for 
 in the most ample manner, the world would have 
 felt less moved over Cuffy's wrongs. " Cuffy has 
 no right to his children." Mrs. Roe has a right 
 to compel Mr. Roe to bestow his name upon her 
 children, and to support the boys until they are 
 twenty-one, and the girls forever. " Cuffy has 
 no legal right to existence." Mrs. Roe has so 
 much legal right to existence that she stands 
 toward the State and toward her husband in the 
 relation of a preferred creditor. The State can- 
 not call upon her for its most arduous duties, 
 which must however be performed in her behalf. 
 Her husband cannot dispose of real property 
 without her signature. If he dies solvent, noth- 
 ing can prevent her taking a fair share of his 
 estate, and he may give her the whole : but if he 
 dies bankrupt, neither his will, nor the State, nor
 
 174 WOMAN AND THE REPUBLIC. 
 
 anything else, can make her pay one dollar of his 
 debts. " Cuffy is subject to restraint and moder- 
 ate chastisement." " The husband has the power 
 to restrain and administer moderate chastisement." 
 The public horsewhipping of a husband by his 
 wife is a rare sight, but when it occurs the law is 
 far more ready to overlook the breach of order 
 than it is to permit the slightest attempt at as- 
 sault and battery upon the wife. As the remain- 
 ing statements have no reference to the laws, I 
 may excuse myself from telling how strangely 
 beneath the dignity of truth they seem to me. 
 That they were urged in connection with a bill 
 asking for divorce for drunkenness suggests that 
 such a plea was made an entering wedge for the 
 radical divorce measures that have been advo- 
 cated in Suffrage conventions. Any State would, 
 at that time, grant legal separation for a wife 
 from a drunken husband, and would compel the 
 husband to support the wife to the extent of his 
 means. 
 
 This matter of easier divorce has been pressed 
 steadily from the beginning, but with very little 
 of the result that the Suffragists desired. 
 
 In the Convention of the National Council of 
 "Women, which met in "Washington, D. C., in 
 February, 1895, the Suffrage Associations were 
 largely represented. Their committee on divorce 
 reform consisted of Ellen Battelle Dietrick, Chair- 
 man, and Mary A. Livermore and Fanny B. Ames. 
 Their report was, in part, as follows : " In ac-
 
 WOMAN SUFFRAGE AND THE LAWS. 175 
 
 cordance with the instructions of the Executive 
 Committee of the Council, your chairman sent 
 forty-eight letters to the Governors of States and 
 Territories, asking each to call the attention of 
 his legislature to the situation concerning divorce 
 laws, and requesting the appointment of a com- 
 mittee to consider the matter, said committee to 
 consist of an equal number of men and women." 
 
 Here it is the same old story. Theirs is not an 
 intelligent presentment of changes desired, but 
 simply a continued urging of women for personal 
 share in the making of the laws. In commenting 
 upon the refusal of the Governor of Iowa, among 
 others, the Committee says : " And yet Iowa is 
 one of the States which has recently formed a 
 commission of men to consider making Iowa 
 divorce laws uniform with those of all other 
 States." The laws that make it possible for a 
 woman divorced in one State to be looked upon 
 in another State as still bound, were not petitioned 
 against. 
 
 Uniformity in the divorce laws of the United 
 States is one of the great legislative reforms that 
 are moving slowly but surely ; and with that, it 
 appears, the Suffrage appeal has nothing to do. 
 The Committee closed its report by saying : " We 
 might as well face the fact that the official serv- 
 ants of the United States cherish frank contempt 
 for woman's opinions and wishes, and that, too, 
 in regard to a matter which concerns the welfare 
 of women far more vitally than it does the welfare
 
 176 WOMAN AND THE REPUBLIC. 
 
 of men. The one thing we should deprecate is 
 having men make any new laws or fresh provisions 
 for women's protection." 
 
 In the spring of 1854- Miss Anthony and Ernes- 
 tine Rose presented a petition to the New York 
 Legislature, and the Albany " Argus," of March 
 4, published a resume of their appeal. The de- 
 mands were : That husband and wife should be 
 tenants in common of property, without survivor- 
 ship, but with a partition on tbe death of one ; 
 that a wife should be competent to discharge 
 trusts and powers the same as a single woman ; 
 that the statute in respect to a married woman's 
 property be changed so that her property could 
 descend as though she had been unmarried ; that 
 married women should be entitled to execute 
 letters testamentary, and of administration ; that 
 married women should have power to make con- 
 tracts and transact business as though unmarried ; 
 that they should be entitled to their own earnings, 
 subject to their proportional liability for support 
 of children ; that post-nuptial acquisitions should 
 belong equally to husband and wife ; that married 
 women should stand on the same footing as single 
 women, as parties or witnesses in legal proceed- 
 ings ; that they should be sole guardians of the 
 minor children ; that the homestead should be 
 inviolable and inalienable for widows and children ; 
 that the laws in relation to divorce should be re- 
 vised, and drunkenness made cause for absolute 
 divorce ; that better care should be taken of single
 
 WOMAN SUFFRAGE AND THE LAWS. 177 
 
 women's property, that their rights might not be 
 lost through ignorance ; that the preference of 
 males in the descent of real estate should be 
 abolished ; that women should exercise the right 
 of suffrage, and be eligible to all offices, occupa- 
 tions, and professions, and to act as jurors ; that 
 courts of conciliation should be organized as peace- 
 makers ; that a law should be enacted extending 
 the masculine designation in all statutes of the 
 State to females. 
 
 I cannot fully understand Miss Anthony's posi- 
 tion ; but in some notable particulars, not her laws 
 but better ones are in force. When Miss Anthony 
 wrote to inquire who was responsible for repeal- 
 ing an act of 1860 for which she had worked with 
 her well-known zeal, Judge Charles J. Folger re- 
 plied, in part : " I think with deference I say it 
 that you are not strictly accurate in calling 
 the legislation of 1862 a repealing one. In but 
 one thing did it repeal, in the sense of taking away 
 right or power or privilege or freedom that the 
 Act of 1860 gave. On the contrary, in some re- 
 spects it gave more or greater." 
 
 Miss Anthony says, in comment on Judge 
 Folger's letter : " Mr. Folger makes mistakes in 
 regard to the effect of these bills ; quite forgetting 
 that the wife has never had an equal right to the 
 joint earnings of the copartnership, as no valua- 
 tion has ever been placed on her labor in the 
 household, to which she gives all her time, 
 thought, and strength. A law securing to the 
 
 12
 
 178 WOMAN AND THE BEPUBLIC. 
 
 wife the absolute right to half the joint earnings, 
 and, at the death of the husband, the same con- 
 trol of property and children that he has when 
 she dies, might make some show of justice ; but 
 it is a provision not yet on the statute-books of 
 any civilized nation." 
 
 If it Avere to be placed on the statute-book, 
 would not one have to be placed beside it making 
 the wife equally responsible for the support of the 
 husband ? The law can only take cognizance of 
 the earnings of that member of the firm who 
 transacts business with the outside world. How 
 the proceeds of mutual labor shall be best made 
 their own is for each husband and wife to settle ; 
 it cannot be matter of legislation. It is interest- 
 ing to think what an increase of domesticity there 
 would be if a business partnership, such as Miss 
 Anthony suggests, were demanded by the statutes. 
 The law, which now lays the whole support on 
 the husband and father, whether the wife and 
 daughter work in the home or not, would make it 
 obligatory for the home partner to give all her 
 time, thought, and strength to labor in the house- 
 hold, in order to bring in her bill for services. 
 
 The real test of the working of woman suffrage 
 is to be found in the answer to the question 
 whether better laws have been framed as a conse- 
 quence ? 
 
 There has been no advance in legislation in 
 Utah or Wyoming through the action or votes of 
 women. The authorities whom I have consulted
 
 WOMAN SUFFRAGE AND THE LAWS. 179 
 
 do not know of any legislation in Colorado which 
 can be traced directly to the presence of women 
 in the legislature. Exception may possibly be 
 made in regard to the Age-of -Consent bill, which, 
 in common with nearly all the States, Colorado 
 passed in favor of raising the age. That bill was 
 introduced by a woman member, and was strongly 
 advocated by the others, and it called forth an 
 unwise discussion and a repulsive scene in the 
 House. A great many women have been elected 
 to county offices, in that State, especially those 
 connected with the schools, and those of Clerk 
 and Treasurer. In answer to a question, my cor- 
 respondent adds : " I do not know of any great 
 improvements of any kind or description in our 
 county affairs that have been made in the past 
 four years." 
 
 In Wyoming, where women have voted so many 
 years, less restraint is imposed on liquor-selling 
 than in most of the other States. Divorce is 
 granted for any one of eleven causes, after a re- 
 sidence of but six months. The age of consent 
 was only fourteen years as late as 1890. Gambl- 
 ing is legal ; not only do the laws mention many 
 games with cards as lawful, but a statute declares : 
 "No town, city, or municipal corporation in this 
 Territory shall hereafter have power to prohibit, 
 suppress or regulate any gaming-house or game, 
 licensed as provided for in this chapter." " Ex- 
 cusable homicide " is also defined by statute. It 
 is allowable "when committed by accident or
 
 180 WOMAN AND THE REPUBLIC. 
 
 misfortune, in the heat of passion or sufficient 
 provocation, or upon a sudden combat ; provided 
 that no undue advantage is taken, nor any dan- 
 gerous weapon used, and that the killing is not 
 done in a cruel or unusual manner." The laws 
 could hardly have been worse before women voted. 
 
 It is matter of surprise to find how generally in 
 Western towns and States in which woman has 
 voted or held office, " Woman has degraded pol- 
 itics, and politics has degraded woman." This is 
 not, to my mind, proof that American women are 
 degenerating, but it suggests that the women who 
 have sought political life are not representative. 
 
 Another legal demand very early made by the 
 Suffrage leaders was that for the entrance of 
 women into men's colleges. So far as the State 
 could control this by law, it has done so. Every 
 educational institution that receives State sup- 
 port, from the primary school to the State Uni- 
 versity, is now open to women. Cornell Universi- 
 ty, opened in October, 1868, was aided by a State 
 gift of a million acres, and opened its doors to 
 women in April, 18T2. In the West, the State 
 Universities would have been closed for lack of 
 pupils, during the war, if women had not attended 
 them. 
 
 The New York State Suffrage Association in- 
 cludes in its report of the doings at the Constitu- 
 tional Convention a report of its legislative work 
 for the twenty-two years of its existence. Of the 
 many petitions presented during those years, but 
 three relate to anything but Suffrage in some
 
 WOMAN SUFFRAGE AND THE LAWS. 181 
 
 form, and these did not originate with the New 
 York Suffrage Association. One of these three 
 related to the bill to secure police matrons in 
 New York City. Work was begun in 1882 and 
 ended in success in 1891, there being strong opposi- 
 tion to it. The act to provide woman physicians 
 for prisons, and one making mother and father 
 joint guardians of children, passed in 1888 and 
 1892. Three of the Suffrage bills refer to school 
 matters, one of which was successful and two 
 were lost. Five relate to municipal suffrage, 
 all of which were defeated. The remaining six- 
 teen bills were all for full suffrage, were all urged 
 by many speakers, and were all defeated. I give, 
 in closing, Mr. Francis M. Scott's summary of the 
 laws of New York State that relate especially to 
 women and are in force to-day. Much special 
 legislation urged by Suffrage petitions has not 
 been enacted at all, and much has been passed in 
 a different form. Suffragists say that the change 
 of laws constitutes no reason for opposing suf- 
 frage, but to my mind it constitutes a most excel- 
 lent one. What has been done by petition proves 
 the power to do more by the same means, and the 
 fact that much of the best legislation has been 
 against the demand of the Suffragists or in pre- 
 cedence of it, proves that the rights of women are 
 in hands that are capable of meeting fresh inter- 
 ests as they arise. 
 
 Every profession and business is open to women
 
 182 WOMAN AND THE REPUBLIC. 
 
 to exactly the same extent as to men, and already 
 women have found a place in law, medicine, archi- 
 tecture, journalism, and other professions. 
 
 Single women always could engage in commer- 
 cial and mercantile pursuits without hindrance or 
 restriction. 
 
 Notwithstanding her marriage, a woman now 
 holds and enjoys her separate property, however 
 acquired, freed from any interference or control 
 on the part of her husband, and from all liability 
 for his debts. 
 
 She may sell, assign, and transfer her real and 
 personal property, and carry on any trade or busi- 
 ness and perform any labor and services on her 
 own sole and separate account, and her earnings 
 are her own sole and separate property. 
 
 She may sue and be sued, as if she were un- 
 married, and may maintain an action in her own 
 name for injury to her person or character (in- 
 cluding actions for slander or libel), and the pro- 
 ceeds of any such action are her sole and separate 
 property. 
 
 She may contract to the same extent, with like 
 effect in the same form as if she were unmarried, 
 and she and her separate estate are liable thereon. 
 
 A widow is endowed of the third part of all the 
 real estate whereof her husband is seized of an 
 estate of inheritance at any time during the mar- 
 riage. This interest, termed during the lifetime 
 of her husband inchoate, attaches at the instant of 
 marriage to all real estate the husband then owns,
 
 WOMAN SUFFRAGE AND THE LAWS. 183 
 
 and after marriage to all real estate he acquires. 
 Having once attached, it cannot be divested by 
 any act of the husband, or any of his creditors. 
 The wife alone can release it, and she forfeits it 
 only in case of a divorce dissolving the marriage 
 for her misconduct. 
 
 The husband cannot either sell or devise his real 
 estate, except subject to this dower right of his 
 wife. The husband's estate by courtesy in his 
 wife's real estate is by no means so broad or so 
 well secured as is the wife's right of dower. It 
 does not attach at all until the birth of a living 
 child, and the wife may absolutely defeat it at any 
 time without any consent on the part of her hus- 
 band, either by conveying her real estate during 
 her lifetime, or 1 by devising it by her will. It is 
 no longer necessary for the husband to join with 
 the wife in conveying her property. 
 
 A husband is liable for necessaries purchased by 
 his wife, and also for money given to the wife by 
 a third person in order to enable her to purchase 
 necessaries, and he is bound to support her and 
 her children without regard to the extent of her 
 individual and separate estate. No similar obliga- 
 tion to furnish necessaries to a husband is imposed 
 upon a wife. The legal definition of necessaries 
 is very broad, being " such things as are actually 
 required for the wife's support commensurate 
 with the husband's means, her wonted living as 
 his spouse, and her station in the community." 
 
 In case of a divorce, whether partial or absolute,
 
 184 WOMAN AND THE REPUBLIC. 
 
 obtained by the wife, the husband is required to 
 pay alimony for her support during the rest of her 
 life, even if she should re-marry. A wife from 
 whom a husband obtains a divorce cannot be re- 
 quired to contribute in any way to his support. 
 
 Although the law has opened wide the door for 
 all women to engage in business, it still discrimi- 
 nates in their favor in many particulars. No 
 woman can be arrested in a civil action, or held 
 by an execution against the body, except in cases 
 in which it is shown that she has committed " a 
 wilful injury to person, character, or property," or 
 has been guilty of such an evasion of duty as is 
 equivalent to a contempt of court. Thus a woman 
 engaged in business cannot be arrested in an action 
 for a debt fraudulently contracted. 
 
 All women judgment debtors, whether married 
 or single, enjoy certain exemptions from the sale 
 of their property under execution, which, in the 
 case of men, extend only to a householder ; that 
 is, a man who has, and provides for, a household 
 or family. 
 
 Every married woman is the joint guardian of 
 her children with her husband, with equal powers, 
 rights, and duties in regard to them with her hus- 
 band. It is only the survivor, be it father or 
 mother, who possesses the right to appoint a 
 guardian by deed or by will. She has now equal 
 rights with the father over her children. 
 
 As matter of practice, the courts when called 
 upon to award the custody of minor children in
 
 WOMAN SUFFRAGE AND THE LAWS. 185 
 
 cases of separation, determine the question with 
 reference solely to the interests of the child, with 
 a strong leaning in the mother's favor. 
 
 A husband's creditors have no claim upon the 
 proceeds of a policy of insurance upon his life for 
 the benefit of his wife, unless the annual pre- 
 miums paid by him shall have exceeded five hun- 
 dred dollars. The proceeds of such a policy are 
 exempt from execution for any debt owed by the 
 wife. 
 
 The statutes contain a large number of special 
 provisions for the benefit of female employees in 
 factories and mercantile houses. In the city of 
 New York, if any man fails to pay the wages due 
 a female employee up to fifty dollars, not only is 
 none of his property exempt from execution, but 
 he is liable to be imprisoned upon a body execution, 
 and kept in close confinement without the privi- 
 lege of bail. A similar rule is applicable in 
 Brooklyn. 
 
 No woman can be called upon to perform mili- 
 tary duty. 
 
 No woman can be required to serve upon any 
 jury. 
 
 No woman can be called upon by the sheriff or 
 any peace officer to assist in quelling a disturb- 
 ance or making an arrest.
 
 CHAPTEE VI. 
 
 WOMAN SUFFRAGE AND THE TRADES. 
 
 THE fifth count in the Suffrage Declaration of 
 Sentiments reads as follows : " He has monopo- 
 lized nearly all the profitable employments, and 
 from those she is permitted to follow she receives 
 but scanty remuneration." 
 
 The women who wrote that in 1848, in common 
 with the majority of American women, were pre- 
 sumably being well provided for in their own 
 homes, by men whose boast it was that their 
 wives and daughters did not need or care to seek 
 employment elsewhere. It is true that at that 
 time, because of this supposed advantage, as mar- 
 ried women they could not have engaged in 
 separate business that would involve the making 
 of contracts or distinct bargain and sale. To the 
 world the husband was the wife's financial 
 manager. But at that time the wife could enter 
 any of the employments as a paid clerk or worker. 
 This count seems more surprising in view of the 
 fact that, writing only three years later, to a 
 Suffrage convention that met in Akron, Ohio, 
 Mrs. Stanton said : " The trades and professions 
 
 are all open to us ; let us quietly enter and make 
 186
 
 WOMAN SUFFRAGE AND THE TRADES. 187 
 
 ourselves, if not rich and famous, at least inde- 
 pendent and respectable." Two years later still, 
 Colonel Thomas "W. Higginson wrote to another 
 Suffrage convention that met in Akron, Ohio : 
 " We complain of the industrial disadvantages of 
 women, and indicate at the same time their capac- 
 ities for a greater variety of pursuits. Why not 
 obtain a statement on as large a scale as possible, 
 first of what women are doing now, commercially 
 and mechanically, throughout the Union, and 
 secondly, of the embarrassments which they meet, 
 the inequality of their wages, and all the other 
 peculiarities of their position." This would have 
 been most valuable and interesting, and it would 
 seem that something of the kind should have 
 preceded the sweeping accusation made in the 
 Declaration ; but there appears in their " History " 
 no evidence of its having been done. In 1859 
 Caroline H. Ball said, in addressing a Suffrage 
 convention : " I honor women who act. That is 
 the reason that I greet so gladly girls like Harriet 
 Hosmer, Louisa Landor, and Margaret Foley. 
 Whatever they do, or do not do, for Art, they do 
 a great deal for the cause of labor. I do not be- 
 lieve any one in this room has an idea of the 
 avenues that are open to women already." Then 
 follows a list of the trades then pursued by women 
 in Great Britain. Of the United States she said : 
 " Of factory operatives in 1845 there were 55,828 
 men and 75,710 women. Women are glue-makers, 
 glove-makers, workers in gold and silver leaf,
 
 188 WOMAN AND THE REPUBLIC. 
 
 hair-weavers, hat and cap-makers, hose-weavers, 
 workers in India-rubber, paper-hangers, phy- 
 sicians, picklers and preservers, saddlers and 
 harness-makers, shoe-makers, soda-room keepers, 
 snuff and cigar-makers, stock and suspender- 
 makers, truss-makers, typers and stereotypers, 
 umbrella-makers, upholsterers, card-makers, pho- 
 tographers, house and sign-painters, fruit-hawkers, 
 button-makers, tobacco-packers, paper-box makers, 
 embroiderers, and fur-sewers." She added : " In 
 New Haven seven women work with seventy men 
 in a clock factory (at half wages)." And in sum- 
 ming up she said : " The great evils that lie at the 
 foundation of depressed wages are that want of re- 
 spect for labor which prevents ladies from engag- 
 ing in it, and that want of respect for women which 
 prevents men from valuing properly the work they 
 do. Make women equal with men before the 
 law, and wages will adjust themselves." 
 
 Women are equal with men legally and wages 
 have not adjusted themselves, and the law has 
 had no control over the feelings and opinions of 
 men and women. Those who were large-minded 
 enough to respect labor asked no warrant from 
 legislation, and those who were small-minded 
 enough to undervalue woman's work because it 
 was woman's, do so still despite the statutes, and 
 would if women voted at every election. Men 
 were equal with each other before the law, but 
 that did not compel the respect of foolish men, 
 nor did their wages adjust themselves to equality
 
 WOMAN SUFFRAGE AND THE TRADES. 189 
 
 on that account. If there were more men work- 
 ing in a trade in a given place than the demand 
 for their products required, the wage would fall, 
 and so it must with women. But reasons entered 
 into the market value of woman's work that did 
 not enter into that of men. Mrs. Ball mentions 
 but one trade in which the wages were lower for 
 women, and there they competed with men. Those 
 seven women working with the seventy men in 
 New Haven were not expected to be called upon to 
 support a family by their earnings. If they were 
 girls, in the natural course of things they were 
 expected to leave the work whenever they were 
 ready to marry. If one of them married one of 
 the seventy men, the firm of employers would 
 lose her services entirely ; but the man who mar- 
 ried her would be depended upon to work more 
 steadily than before, and he would also have more 
 incentive to do better work in order to command 
 still higher wages. The long cry of Suffrage has 
 not been able to bring afiout " equal pay for equal 
 work," even where legislation to that effect has 
 been introduced into Trades Unions and State 
 laws. This has still rested, and must rest, with 
 the employer, and his action must be governed by 
 quality and demand and supply. The attempt 
 to secure " equal wages " among men has resulted 
 in bringing down the wages of all to the point of 
 the poorer workers. The general laws of trade, 
 like those of government, are based on principles 
 of universal equity, and however strenuously tern-
 
 190 WOMAN AND THE REPUBLIC. 
 
 porary deviations may be pressed, they return at 
 last to the natural position. This is not saying 
 that there is not great injustice toward labor by 
 capital, and toward capital by labor, but that the 
 foundation principles tend to govern the mutual 
 relations, and forcing that is contrary to these 
 cannot be permanently successful. If the work 
 of women for any reason is unequal, the wages 
 will be, and the mere fact that some particular 
 women work for some particular time the same 
 number of hours, and as well as do the men in 
 the same establishments, does not do away with 
 the fact that women's work in general is not as 
 steady as men's, and is not expected to meet the 
 same emergency of family support. No one can 
 believe more fully than I in equal wages for work 
 that is really equal; but it seems to me that 
 private contract, and not public action, must regu- 
 late the matter of special wage. 
 
 Government reports show that the average age 
 of the working-girl in this country is but twenty- 
 two years, and that after twenty the number falls 
 off rapidly. Unskilled labor must forever take 
 the place of that which is withdrawn, which is 
 another and most valid reason for lower wages. 
 That lower wages are the result of natural causes, 
 and not of unnatural feeling, is shown in many 
 ways. Woman teachers at the West, where 
 teachers were needed, received as good pay as did 
 men. In New York I heard Superintendent 
 Jasper, I think it was, say : " I am in favor of
 
 WOMAN SUFFRAGE AND THE TRADES. 191 
 
 equal pay for equal work, for the two sexes ; but 
 we cannot give it here. We can get twice as 
 many good women teachers as men teachers, and 
 when we need men we must pay at a higher 
 rate." This does not extend to the highest grade 
 of teachers, superintendents, and professors in 
 colleges, where men compete with one another. 
 There the compensation is the same for equal 
 work. In the highest forms of work women com- 
 pete on equal terms. In literature women are 
 paid, for books or articles, the same prices that 
 men receive. In art this is true. It is the picture 
 or statue or musical ability that counts. Singers 
 receive as much for the soprano as for the tenor 
 voice. Actresses are paid according to " draw- 
 ing " power, and woman dancers and acrobats, 
 alas ! command the highest price. 
 
 There is, among others, this fundamental differ- 
 ence between the business life of men and women. 
 For men who pursue occupations outside the 
 home, there are women to manage that home. 
 For women who pursue occupations outside the 
 home, there are, not men, but other women, to 
 manage the home. The final domestic care of the 
 world must come upon women. The final atten- 
 tion to social life must come upon women. In 
 behalf of the women who are constrained, or who 
 choose, to sacrifice their share in this part of the 
 world's necessary work, some other women must 
 do double duty. That this rule has seeming ex- 
 ceptions does not make it less the universal rule.
 
 192 WOMAN AND THE REPUBLIC. 
 
 Nothing, not even " industrial emancipation," is 
 gotten for nothing. 
 
 When the count cited above from the Suffrage 
 indictment was written, the factory system had 
 been established in this country twenty-six years. 
 From the Revolution down to 1822, the women 
 of the land had been busy in the homes making 
 the household and personal wear. Sixteen years 
 after the introduction of machinery into Lowell, 
 Mass., 12,507 operatives were at work there, the 
 majority of whom were women, American women 
 and girls. New York State also had its mills. 
 "Fanny Forester" (afterward Mrs. Judson) 
 worked in a mill near her home in that State. 
 She went there, as did hosts of New England 
 girls, Lucy Larcom and Harriet Robinson among 
 the number, to relieve the home, but especially to 
 gain the means of education, for themselves and 
 for their brothers and sisters. The towns afforded 
 better libraries, and there were evening classes 
 that they could attend, things not to be had in 
 the farming districts. In 1850, in twenty-five 
 States, the factory census reported 32,295 men and 
 62,661 women workers. In 1860 there were 46,- 
 859 men and 75,169 women. Hosiery machinery 
 at this time was giving employment to three times 
 as many women as men. But the emigrant, and 
 not the American man, had been the means of 
 turning out the native woman worker ; it was the 
 foreign-born woman who worked for "unequal 
 pay." In 1846, the sewing-machine had been
 
 WOMAN SUFFRAGE AND THE TRADES. 193 
 
 invented. Previous to that time, 61,500 women 
 were employed making boys' clothing by hand for 
 the market, which was twice the number of men 
 so employed, while the woman tailor was as famil- 
 iar a figure as the dress-maker in every village, 
 where she went from house to house. 
 
 In 1861 came our Civil War, with its awful 
 sacrifice of young men. With that also came the 
 heavy money loss, and consequent inability of many 
 men, even where life and limb had been spared, 
 to support their families in the homes. That 
 great conflict, with its stern necessities, its lessons 
 of mutual helpfulness, its military discipline, which 
 taught the value of organization, did more than 
 could ten thousand conventions, even had they 
 been working with knowledge and system, to 
 instruct women in love for work for others. It 
 nerved them to labor for self-support and for the 
 support of those who were now dependent upon 
 them because the strong arm had fallen and the 
 willing heart had ceased to beat. Before the year 
 1861 had closed, there were a million women in 
 this country earning their daily bread by honor- 
 able labor. As time went on, and the slaughter 
 continued, and the nation's debt piled up, and 
 prices became almost fabulous, more and more 
 women asked through blinding tears, "What 
 can I do ? " Every trade was thrown open to 
 women, and the laws had placed the married 
 woman where she could compete on equal 
 terms with her unmarried sister, even though 
 13
 
 194 WOMAN AND THE REPUBLIC. 
 
 she still had the advantage of a husband's sup- 
 port. 
 
 A great pother has lately been made by Suf- 
 frage workers in New York because a bill was 
 proposed prohibiting married women from teach- 
 ing in the public schools. This has been the un- 
 written law in many places for years. The prac- 
 tice was adopted to offset the maintenance of 
 married women. Teachers should receive more 
 pay, but so should poets and artists, and we all 
 hope the time will come when brain work will 
 have more tangible market value. 
 
 The sewing-machine had thrown women out 
 of employment, as with it one woman could do 
 the work of many. The number of work-seekers 
 was enlarged by the influx, from the desolated 
 South, of women whose entire living had been 
 swept away. This army of uneducated workers 
 from all sections were compelled not only to com- 
 pete with men but with themselves as well. They 
 sought, and could seek, only the lighter employ- 
 ments. Suffragists had their wish in regard to 
 man's relinquishment of the " profitable employ- 
 ments," but not in the way they intended. The 
 women for whose sake those profitable employ- 
 ments had been "monopolized" were now not 
 only allowed by law but compelled by circum- 
 stance to toil from sun to sun at the best they 
 could find to do ; their frailer organizations were 
 forced to bear " the double curse of work and 
 pain." A nobler army of martyrs never turned
 
 WOMAN SUFFRAGE AND THE TRADES. 195 
 
 their sorrows into blessings by the spirit in which 
 they met them, than the American women who 
 put their shoulders to the wheels of business that 
 were moving in a hundred ways. 
 
 In 1843 a humble beginning at industrial educa- 
 tion for girls had been made by the Female 
 Guardian Society. In 1854 Peter Cooper estab- 
 lished the Cooper Union with its generous facili- 
 ties for women in industry and the arts. The 
 Young Women's Christian Association was 
 founded in Normal, Illinois, in 1872, and its work 
 in the industrial branch spread, before many 
 years, to every city and town in the land. Men 
 originated for women the first " Woman's Pro-' 
 tective Union." In twenty-five years it had 
 reported legal suits won for 12,000 women, and 
 $41,000 collected. In 1869 the great organization 
 of the Knights of Labor was founded, and in its 
 body of rules was one " to secure for both sexes 
 equal pay for equal Avork." Failure proves that 
 labor cannot, any more than paper, be coined into 
 money by the mere fiat of a government or an 
 organization. 
 
 But the great impulse to industrial education 
 came through the Centennial Exposition held at 
 Philadelphia in 1876. While the land was filled 
 with the hum of preparation, as their contribution 
 to that indication of peaceful progress, the Suf- 
 frage Associations were rolling up another peti- 
 tion in which to set forth their wrongs. After 
 General Hawley, manager of the Exposition, had
 
 196 WOMAN AND TUE REPUBLIC. 
 
 courteously refused to receive it in a public meet- 
 ing, it was " pressed upon the Nation's heart " by 
 delegates who pushed their way into Independence 
 Hall. Outside that historic building, under the 
 broiling sun, with Matilda Joslyn Gage to hold an 
 umbrella over her, Miss Anthony read aloud a 
 " Declaration of Independence " that re-echoed 
 the sentiments of their first Declaration. It began 
 by saying : " While the nation is buoyant with 
 patriotism, and all hearts are attuned to praise, it 
 is with sorrow we come to strike the one discord- 
 ant note " a typical and prophetic sentence. 
 
 From 1876 girls, as well as boys, received man- 
 ual training in the public schools, and when that 
 proved impracticable, the way was found to open 
 industrial schools that should include classes for 
 girls. Every State, and almost every city and 
 town of any size, had them. It was not long ere 
 multitudes of societies and organizations furnished 
 means for women's education in business and 
 mechanic arts. The growth of the philanthropy 
 of self-help is one of the wonders of the past 
 twenty-five years, and women, without the ballot, 
 have largely assisted in developing it. 
 
 John Graham Brooks, in a lecture delivered in 
 New York in the winter of 1895-6, on " Some 
 Economic Aspects of the Woman Question," said : 
 " Woman who used to do her work in the house 
 now does it in the factory, and the same work, doing 
 her work under absolutely new and different con- 
 ditions, a change so great that it closes finally one
 
 WOMAN SUFFRAGE AND THE TRADES. 197 
 
 argument that I hear again and again by those 
 opposed to woman suffrage namely, that the 
 place for woman is in the home." 
 
 One condition under which she works that is 
 not " absolutely new and different " is that of sex. 
 Whatever as a woman she could not do in the 
 home she cannot do abroad as a working-woman. 
 She is in business as a business woman, not 
 as a business man. Economic equality in such 
 things as she can do is as unlike to a sim- 
 ilarity in work which ignores sex conditions as a 
 business corporation is to the government under 
 whose laws it exists and by which its rights are 
 defended. But even the external conditions are 
 not so changed as might at first appear. The 
 statistical proof of the youth of the majority of 
 workers, the comparatively small number out of 
 the whole population who go into business, and the 
 fact that the domestic work for these very work- 
 ers must be done by women, all show this. 
 
 The United States Census of 1890 shows that 
 not quite four million women are "engaged in 
 gainful occupations." Of these more than one 
 and a half million are in domestic service, and 
 nearly half a million in professional service, 
 mainly as teachers. The most striking gain has 
 been made in the lighter forms of profitable labor 
 by stenographers, typewriters, telegraph and 
 telephone operators, cashiers, bookkeepers, etc. 
 In 1870 there were 19,828 of these ; in 1890, there 
 were 228,421. The invention of the type-writing
 
 198 WOMAN AND TUE REPUBLIC. 
 
 machine appears to be the ballot that has mainly 
 produced this result. Carrol D. "Wright says that 
 in twenty cities examined in the United States he 
 found, among 17,000 working- women, that 15,887 
 were single, 1,038 were widows, and 745 were 
 married. This tells the same story. The mass of 
 these women, like the mass of men, are working, 
 not for public influence or station, but for the own- 
 ing and holding of a home. The latest effort in 
 self-help for the working class is the wise one of 
 building them good homes. The best renting pro- 
 perty has been found to be that which gives privacy 
 and those distinctions that mark the family. 
 
 The latest report of the New York Bureau of 
 Statistics of Labor shows that of 8,040 persons 
 who registered for employment in New York city, 
 6,458 were men, and 1,582 were women. Of 
 these, the foreign-born numbered 4,804, of whom 
 3,674 were men and 1,140 were women. The 
 native-born numbered 3,234, of whom 2,796 were 
 men, and 442 were women. The list included 
 every trade and profession, from that of day 
 laborer to that of clergyman, from that of school 
 teacher to that of domestic servant, and showed 
 that in the city where more women are employed 
 than in any other place, the proportion of women 
 to men was less than one fifth, and of native 
 American to foreign-born women two fifths. 
 
 Mr. Brooks would favor suffrage because " in 
 this new career there are reasons for every whit 
 of protection." He mentions, as proof of woman's
 
 WOMAN SUFFRAGE AND THE TRADES. 199 
 
 changed attitude as an industrial unit, that the 
 Supreme Courts of Illinois and California have 
 decided against special legislation for women. 
 They did so on the ground that " they were now 
 earning their livelihood under men's conditions, and 
 should not have special legislation in business re- 
 lations." If Mr. Brooks thinks that women wish 
 the ballot to restore the special legislation, he does 
 not know the Suffrage demand for equality. In 
 England, when the laws were under discussion 
 that forbid the employment of women more than 
 a certain number of hours, and of children under 
 certain ages, the "Woman Suffrage leaders pro- 
 tested against the former as an infringement of 
 personal rights and the ability to make contracts. 
 But the special legislation for business women 
 goes on, because, after all, the State knows that 
 they are business women, and not business men, 
 and the Suffrage quarrel in regard to privilege 
 versus right goes on also. 
 
 Before the Committee of the Constitutional 
 Convention, Mrs. Ecob, of Albany, said : " You 
 speak of chivalry. "We scorn the word ! What 
 has your chivalry done for the weaker sex ? 
 Women are the upaid laborers of the world out- 
 casts in government." Mrs. Hood, of Brooklyn, 
 on the same occasion said : " Who dares insult 
 our American manhood by declaring that men 
 will be less courteous to mother, wife, and sister, 
 because they are political equals? Woman's 
 equality in the industrial world has to-day pro-
 
 200 WOMAN AND THE REPUBLIC. 
 
 duced a nobler, better chivalry than was ever 
 conceived by the knights of old." 
 
 These two Suffrage leaders will have to settle 
 between themselves the question which they have 
 placed in dispute. It serves to point the moral of 
 dilemma that attends an attempted adjustment 
 of unnatural claims. Meantime government is 
 caring for the weak, and chivalry is doing justice. 
 The Labor Law that went into effect in this State 
 on September 1st provided that children be clas- 
 sified so that those under fourteen years should 
 not be employed in mercantile pursuits. Chil- 
 dren between the ages of twelve and fourteen will 
 be permitted to work in vacation, if they can 
 show that they have attended school through the 
 year. The girls between fourteen and twenty- 
 one are not to be allowed to work more than ten 
 hours a day. Their employment before 7 A. M. 
 and after 10 P. M. is forbidden. Women and 
 children are not allowed to work in basements, 
 without permits from the Health Board as to the 
 condition of the basement. Seats are to be pro- 
 vided for woman employees, forty-five minutes 
 given them for luncheon, and proper lunch and 
 toilet rooms to be secured. Penalties, ranging 
 from a fine of $20 for the first offence to impris- 
 onment, are prescribed for violation of the law. In 
 his last report, published in January 1897, the New 
 York Commissioner of Labor considers the low 
 wages and petty wrongs of working women and 
 girls in New York City. He advises the forma-
 
 WOMAN SUFFRAGE AND THE TRADES. 201 
 
 tion of unions among themselves for their better 
 protection. 
 
 Mr. Brooks does not agree with those who 
 claim that possession of the ballot would raise 
 wages. Mrs. Ames and Dr. Jacobi think it would 
 only raise them through the indirect influence of 
 the greater respect in which the worker would be 
 held. This is safe ground again, because it is 
 debatable ; but the domestic servants of those who 
 hold the former opinion might give them an 
 object-lesson. Unfranchised as the servants are, 
 they have only to make a threat of leaving to 
 secure better wages. 
 
 Harriette A. Keyser, who was the special Suf- 
 frage champion of the working- woman before the 
 Committee of the Constitutional Convention, gave 
 not one fact or figure to show that the working- 
 woman, where she had the ballot, had already 
 been helped by it, or that it was likely to help 
 her, or how and why it might help her. Among 
 the generalities she uttered was the following; 
 " But the greatest value of the working-woman, 
 to my mind, is that without her economic value 
 this present demand for equal suffrage could 
 never be made. Indeed, the suffrage of the 
 world is due to her. Do I mean by this that 
 every working-woman in the country sees her 
 own value so clearly that she demands enfran- 
 chisement ? I could not say this with truth. I 
 make this statement irrespective of what any in- 
 dividual working- woman may think. It is based
 
 202 WOMAN AND THE REPUBLIC. 
 
 upon what she is. As through the last half cent- 
 ury the contention for equal rights has continued, 
 the working-woman has been the great object- 
 lesson. It was not from women of leisure, having 
 all the rights they want, that inspiration has been 
 received. It has been caught from the patient 
 worker, healing the sick, writing the book, paint- 
 ing the picture, teaching the children, tilling the 
 soil, working in the factory, serving in the house- 
 hold. Every stroke of these workers has been 
 a protest against a disfranchised individuality." 
 Miss Keyser has mentioned most of the classes in 
 this country, for, so far as my experience goes, 
 there is no such thing as a leisure class, in the 
 sense of an idle class, of women. Women are 
 almost universally industrious, and it is a mistake 
 to suppose that their early industry in the house 
 was not as much appreciated and counted in the 
 general fund of work as their more public activity 
 now. It is well for Miss Keyser to make her 
 estimate of the Suffrage value of the working- 
 woman one that shall have no reference to the 
 expressed views of the working-woman herself ; 
 because the working-woman seems almost univer- 
 sally not only unconscious of but indifferent to 
 her attitude as a great object-lesson in favor of 
 the ballot. But here is something new. Suf- 
 fragists have first claimed that there could be no 
 
 o 
 
 working-woman unless there was a ballot in 
 woman's hand ; then they claimed that, although 
 there was a working-woman despite the fact that
 
 WOMAN SUFFRAGE AND THE TRADES. 203 
 
 she had not been enfranchised, she was made by 
 the agitation for the ballot ; and now comes Miss 
 Keyser to say that, not only is the working- 
 woman not due to the ballot, or to ballot-seeking, 
 but " the suffrage of the world is due to her," for 
 " without her economic value this present demand 
 for equal suffrage could never have been made ! " 
 Tar baby ain't sayin' nuthin'. 
 
 Dr. Jacobi, in " Common Sense," says : " What- 
 ever may be the personal privileges of their lot, 
 whatever the legal protection accorded to their 
 earnings, the public status of such a class remains 
 strictly that of aliens. At the present moment 
 this vast and constantly growing army of women 
 industrials constitutes an alien class. The priva- 
 tion for that class of political right to defend its 
 interests is only masked, but not compensated, by 
 its numerous inter-relations with those who have 
 rights." So they are conceded to have personal 
 privileges, and legal protection for earnings. The 
 alienism is then purely political, and works no hard- 
 ship but what Suffragists conceive to be in the men- 
 tal attitude of the worker. 
 
 Foreign capitalists who own land or plant in 
 the United States are unfranchised. We have 
 large numbers of men working in trades and pro- 
 fessions who never have been naturalized, but we 
 do not dream that all these constitute an alien 
 class of industrials. No distinction is made in 
 business opportunity between the voter and non- 
 voter. Neither is any social distinction made
 
 204 WOMAN AND THE REPUBLIC. 
 
 regarding worker or employer on account of the 
 relations of either to the ballot. Market value is 
 not measured by suffrage, except in dishonorable 
 transactions, and the women " with ballots in their 
 hands " are not the Government's preferred credi- 
 tors. The men in the District of Columbia are not 
 conscious of lower wages and industrial ostracism. 
 Again, Dr. Jacobi says : " The share of women in 
 political rights and life imperfect and deferred 
 during the predominance of militarism has be- 
 come natural, has become inevitable, with the 
 advent of industrialism, in which they so largely 
 share." 
 
 Industrialism has no more power to change the 
 basis of government than the abolition movement 
 had when certain advocates of it shouted that it 
 was "sinful to vote or hold office, because the 
 government was founded upon physical force and 
 maintained itself by muskets." Industrialism is 
 bringing into this country some of the gravest 
 problems it has ever met. The sympathy of the 
 people is on the side of labor that uses honorable 
 means ; but Cleveland and Leadville are among 
 the places that suggest afresh the fact that 
 industrialism must be kept in order for its own 
 sake, for the sake of general peace, and for the 
 sake of its increasing ranks of " alien " women 
 who look to it for " every whit of protection," 
 save that which their own self-respect and that of 
 public opinion can win them. 
 
 Again, Dr. Jacobi says : " Notwithstanding 
 the repression of women's civil rights, and their
 
 WOMAN SUFFRAGE AND THE TRADES. 205 
 
 absolute exclusion from even the dream of a po- 
 litical sphere, the women of France engage more 
 freely than anywhere else in business and in- 
 dustry." There is a moral here deeper than can 
 be read at a glance. The first thought suggested 
 is, that industrial success for woman is not in the 
 least dependent upon the vote, The second is, 
 that industrial progress does not command the 
 vote. The third is, that American freedom has 
 worked in the opposite direction from French 
 unstable republicanism. And the fourth is, that 
 industrious France stands appalled at the lack 
 of increase of its population. There are many 
 forces that sap its national life, but perhaps 
 the most conspicuous is the socialistic and 
 anarchistic tendency of its labor organizations. 
 The woman-suffrage idea was first openly pro- 
 claimed during the French Revolution. In 1851 
 the annual Suffrage Convention in this country 
 was called by Paulina "Wright Davis, to meet in 
 Worcester, Mass. Ernestine Rose read to the 
 convention two letters addressed to that body 
 through her, written by Jeanne Deroine and 
 Pauline Roland, from a Paris prison. During 
 the revolutionary movements of 1848, these 
 women had played conspicuous roles. One of 
 them had attempted to nominate the mayor in her 
 native city, the other to be a candidate for the 
 Legislative Assembly. They wrote : " Sisters of 
 America ! Your socialist sisters of France are 
 united with you in the vindication of the right of
 
 206 WOMAN AND THE REPUBLIC. 
 
 woman to civil and political equality. We have, 
 moreover, the profound conviction that only by 
 the power of association based on solidarity by 
 the union of the working-classes of both sexes 
 in organized labor, can be acquired, completely 
 and pacifically, the civil and political equality of 
 woman, and the social right for all." 
 
 I know the feud, and the grounds for it, be- 
 tween socialism and anarchy. But both are 
 enemies of the social order, and both are favorers 
 of woman suffrage. How " pacifically " the labor 
 movement that originated in France in 1848, and 
 spread throughout Europe, was likely to proceed, 
 we may judge by its constant outbreaks kindred 
 to the recent bomb-throwing in Paris. In the 
 German Working-man's Union, Hasenclever, for 
 many years the leading socialist in the German 
 Reichstag, said : " The Woman Question would 
 be taken by the developed, or, more correctly 
 speaking, the communistic state, under its own 
 control, for in this state " (which was to consist 
 of men and women with equal vqte) " when the 
 community bears the obligation of maintaining 
 the children, and no private capital exists, the 
 woman need no longer be chained to one man. 
 The bond between the sexes will be merely a 
 moral one, and if the characters do not harmonize 
 could be dissolved." The " Social Democrat " of 
 Copenhagen has for mottoes : " All men and 
 women over twenty-one should vote." " There 
 should be institutions for the proper bringing
 
 WOMAN SUFFRAGE AND THE TRADES. 207 
 
 up of children." All the communistic and anar- 
 chistic labor organizations in Germany, France, 
 Switzerland, Denmark, and England proclaim 
 woman suffrage as a prime factor, and the disrup- 
 tion of the family as its corollary. 
 
 There are many who remember the visit to this 
 country of the socialist, Dr. Aveling, and his (so- 
 called) wife, the daughter of Karl Marx. His 
 legal wife had been left in England. Miss Marx 
 said, in reply to the question of a Chicago lady, 
 that love was the only recognized marriage in 
 Socialism, consequently no bonds of any kind 
 would be required. Divorces would be impos- 
 sible ; for when love ceased, separation would 
 naturally ensue. 
 
 At a meeting of the Woman's Council held in 
 "Washington, in 1888, Mrs. Stanton said : "I have 
 often said to men of the present day that the next 
 generation of women will not stand arguing with 
 you as patiently as we have for half a century. 
 The organizations of labor all over the country 
 are holding out their hands to women. The time 
 is not far distant when, if men do not do justice 
 to women, the women will strike hands with 
 labor, with socialists, with anarchists, and you 
 will have the scenes of the Revolution of France 
 acted over again in this republic." 
 
 Mrs. Stanton Blatch, daughter of Elizabeth 
 Cady Stanton, in her lecture in this country two 
 years ago on "The Economic Emancipation of 
 Woman," said that she rejoiced in every co-oper-
 
 208 WOMAN AND THE REPUBLIC. 
 
 ative working-woman's dwelling, because it was 
 a blow aimed at the isolated home, and she has 
 just repeated in New York her proposition for the 
 institutional care of children. Alice Hyneman 
 Rhine, in her article on " "Woman's Work in 
 America," says of socialistic labor, "It aims to 
 benefit woman by recognizing her as a perfect 
 equal of man, politically and socially ; by fixing 
 woman's means of support by the state so as to 
 render her independent of man." " Freedom," a 
 radical socialistic newspaper published in Chicago, 
 where Emma Goldman and her ilk have revealed 
 the true inwardness of such movements, recom- 
 mends as the first step " equal rights for all, with- 
 out distinction of race or sex," and the abolition 
 of " class rule." Our most radical socialistic 
 Labor National Convention in New York, this 
 year, had four woman delegates. 
 
 The Knights of Labor who first put " equal pay 
 for equal work" into their platform, appeared 
 in their late convention, under the lead of Sover- 
 eign, who declared that Gov. Altgeld " was one 
 of the finest types of American manhood to-day." 
 They seem to be drifting toward that phase of 
 Socialism to which Alice Hyneman Rhine referred. 
 There are no greater tyrants than some of the 
 Labor organizations, and one evidence of this is 
 the fact that they prevent the colored man from 
 doing any work outside of a few of the least 
 noble occupations. 
 
 With such edged tools as these are our Ameri-
 
 WOMAN SUFFRAGE AND THE TRADES. 209 
 
 can women playing when they demand, in the 
 name of democracy, in the name of the family, in 
 the name of the working-woman, that the word 
 " sex " shall be inserted in the United States Con- 
 stitution, and the word " male " be stricken from 
 every State constitution that now contains it.
 
 CHAPTEK YII. 
 
 WOMAN SUFFRAGE AND THE PROFESSION*. 
 
 THE sixth, count in the Declaration of Senti- 
 ments reads: "He closes against her all the 
 avenues to wealth and distinction which he con- 
 siders most honorable to himself. As a teacher 
 of theology, medicine, or law, she is not known." 
 
 That statement contains another evidence of 
 the untruthfulness of a half truth. First, it is an 
 unwarrantable assumption, of which no proof is 
 offered, that man had closed against woman any 
 avenue to wealth and distinction, or that he felt 
 toward woman the selfish and monopolizing spirit 
 implied in such accusation. Second, but three of 
 the avenues, all of which he was said to have 
 closed against her, are mentioned. Whatever 
 may be the truth about those three, the no less 
 honorable, although less arduous, avenues to 
 wealth and distinction were as open to her as 
 to him. As educator, author, artist, in painting, 
 music, and sculpture, she could freely attain to 
 the same coveted end. The Suffragists did not 
 decry man's " monopoly " of the honorable and 
 profitable but severe professions of civil engineer- 
 ing, seamanship, mining engineering, lighthouse 
 210
 
 WOMAN SUFFRAGE AND THE PROFESSIONS. 211 
 
 keeping and inspecting, signal service, military 
 and naval duty, and the like. These, and the 
 drudgery of the world's business and commerce, 
 man was welcome to keep. 
 
 But, most of all, this Suffrage indictment con- 
 tains, as do all the rest, another tacit untruth 
 when it assumes that woman's work has not in 
 the past been as honorable to herself and as prof- 
 itable to the world as has that of man. By set- 
 ting up a false standard for achievement, and at- 
 tempting to make everything conform to it, the 
 Suffrage movement has done incalculable harm. 
 It is not progressing to push into an unwonted 
 place merely because it is unwonted, and because 
 you can push in. It is progress to enter it in 
 response both to an inward and an outward need. 
 
 When the first Suffrage convention had adopted 
 the Declaration of Sentiments, Lucretia Mott 
 offered a resolution, which was also adopted, 
 declaring that " the speedy success of our cause 
 depends upon the zealous and untiring efforts of 
 men and women for the overthrow of the monop- 
 oly of the pulpit, and for the securing to woman 
 an equal participation with men in the various 
 trades, professions, and commerce." 
 
 The most remarkable thing about this resolu- 
 tion is, that it was promulgated by a woman who 
 was at that very time a gifted and eloquent 
 preacher, so that to her, who cared for it so highly, 
 man had not closed that avenue to wealth and 
 distinction. As she had a husband to support her
 
 212 WOMAN AND THE REPUBLIC. 
 
 and her children, she was much more free to 
 attain those desirable ends than most of the min- 
 isters who were preaching for humanity's sake 
 and the gospel's, at salaries ranging from five 
 hundred to two thousand dollars a year, and who 
 had families to support out of their slender pit- 
 tance. If any woman was in a position to " over- 
 throw the monopoly of the pulpit," surely she 
 was. Stately and beautiful of mien, fervent in 
 spirit, eloquent in language, one who had learned 
 the Hebrew and Greek that she might read the 
 Scriptures in the original tongues, what did she 
 lack ? Not only was no pulpit of another faith 
 than hers ever opened to her, but more than half 
 those of her own form of worship were closed 
 against hearing the inner voice as interpreted by 
 her. In that schism that rent the Society of 
 Friends as no other religious body has ever been 
 rent, she threw in her fortunes, or led others to 
 throw in their fortunes (for she had been preach- 
 ing nine years when the division occurred), with 
 that portion that placed the " inner light " above 
 all Scripture. When the Friends came from the 
 London meeting to testify against the teachings 
 of the schismatics, they besought Lucretia Mott to 
 return to the faith of her childhood, but she 
 resisted from conviction that she was right. Elias 
 Hicks, her leader, had instigated the members of 
 his congregation to refuse to pay their taxes to 
 the Government during and following the war of 
 1812, on the ground that they represented an
 
 WOMAN SUFFRAGE AND THE PROFESSIONS. 213 
 
 encroachment of the secular power on Christian 
 liberty, and were used to support war, which was 
 sin. Lucretia Mott preached that " no Christian 
 can consistently uphold a government based on 
 the sword, or relying on that as an ultimate 
 resort." The country has always suffered from 
 this doctrine. The Tory Quakers of the Revolu- 
 tion called publicly upon Friends " to withstand 
 and refuse to submit " " to instructions and ordi- 
 nances " not warranted by " that happy Constitu- 
 tion under which we have long enjoyed tran- 
 quillity and peace." Thomas Paine, whose parents 
 were Friends, in " The Crisis," says : " The com- 
 mon phrase of these people is, ' Our principles are 
 peace.' To which it may be replied, ' and your 
 practices are the reverse.' " Another striking in- 
 stance of this disagreement between principle and 
 practice is seen in Lucretia Mott's behavior. From 
 the platform where she demanded the ballot for 
 woman, she proclaimed that all voting was sinful. 
 That bodies of people who so held should con- 
 tinue to enjoy the Government's protection of 
 themselves and their property, through the sacri- 
 fices made by those who carried on government 
 by giving willingly their money and their strength, 
 is a proof of our wonderful freedom. 
 
 Elizabeth Fry and most of the English Friends 
 would not mention the name of Mrs. Mott. Mrs. 
 Stanton once asked her what she would have done 
 after the Hicksite faction had been voted out of 
 meeting at the "World's Conventicle of Friends in
 
 214 WOMAN AND TI1E REPUBLIC. 
 
 London, if the spirit had moved her to speak when 
 the chairman and members had moved that she 
 be silent, and she answered, " Where the spirit 
 of God is, there is liberty." This is the liberty of 
 anarchy, and it had its due weight in the Suffrage 
 movement. Mrs. Stanton, in the course of a 
 eulogy pronounced at Mrs. Mott's funeral, said : 
 " The ' vagaries ' of the Anti-slavery struggle, in 
 which Lucretia Mott took a leading part, have 
 been coined into law ; and the ' wild fantasies ' of 
 the Abolitionists are now the Thirteenth, Four- 
 teenth, and Fifteenth amendments to the National 
 Constitution. . . . The' infidel ' Hicksite principles 
 that shocked Christendom are now the corner- 
 stones of the liberal religious movement in this 
 country." The vagaries of the Anti-slavery 
 struggle are exactly those that were not coined 
 into law. The wild fantasies of the Abolitionists 
 were rejected by those whose sober judgment and 
 steady courage made possible the last constitu- 
 tional amendments. And no truer is it that the 
 " infidel " Hicksite principles are the corner-stones 
 of any genuine movement of Christian liberality. 
 "While the Friends mourn that infidelity and 
 Roman Catholicism have made inroads upon their 
 progress in some places, they have steadily ad- 
 vanced in the other direction from that pointed 
 out by Lucretia Mott. Their educated and paid 
 ministry, their First-day schools, their missions, 
 home and foreign, their music, and simple but set 
 forms, their reports to London of " conversion and
 
 WOMAN SUFFRAGE AND THE PROFESSIONS. 215 
 
 profession of faith/' and their rapid growth where 
 these things have taken place, all indicate the 
 truth of this. The large meeting at Swartmore 
 College, in the summer of 1896, is another evidence. 
 
 The proportion of woman preachers to the dif- 
 ferent denominations is as follows : The Hicksite- 
 Quakers (as against the orthodox) have the most. 
 So have the German Methodists (United Brethren) 
 as against the orthodox Methodists. The Free- 
 Will Baptists, as against the orthodox Baptists, 
 ordain more woman preachers. The Universalist 
 preceded the Unitarian church in so doing. The 
 Presbyterian and Congregational churches, as a 
 body, have taken no steps in that direction. In 
 the Congregational denomination any separate 
 body of worshippers can ordain whom it sees fit. 
 The Roman Catholic and Episcopal churches have 
 orders which band women as religious workers and 
 remove them more or less from the ordinary life of 
 the world, but they have taken no steps toward or- 
 daining women for the ministry. 
 
 We may note that the denominations that have 
 been foremost in building colleges for woman, 
 and in promoting her general advancement in pro- 
 fessions and trades, as well as in social and phil- 
 anthropic matters, are the ones whose pulpits she 
 has not entered. They are also those by which 
 she is most cordially welcomed to speak on all 
 Christian and philanthropic themes. Where her 
 influence is most broadly felt, she has not been 
 taken out of the ordinary life that she was meant
 
 216 WOMAN AND THE REPUBLIC. 
 
 to share and to SAvay. It was from the great de- 
 nominations that she first crossed the threshold of 
 home to carry home love and principle to foreign 
 countries. In missions she has served in every con- 
 ceivable form of public benevolence, side by side 
 with man. Eeal reforms work from within. 
 If the time comes when the other branches of the 
 Christian Church feel as do a few at present, that 
 the exercise of the ministerial office is consistent 
 and appropriate for woman, one that compels no 
 sacrifice of the life and work that are, and must 
 be, peculiarly her own, the ballot will not be 
 needed to place her or to keep her in their pulpits. 
 Whatever may be thought of the profession of 
 the ministry for woman, it must certainly be 
 acknowledged that it is the one farthest removed 
 from political thought and action. If any class 
 of women should be glad to be exempted from the 
 vote, it is the woman preachers. 
 
 In her book, "Common Sense," Dr. Jacobi 
 says : " The profession of medicine was thrown 
 open to women when, in 1849, the year following 
 the Revolution, and the passage of the Married 
 "Woman's Property Rights Bill, New York State 
 for the first time, at Geneva, conferred a medical 
 diploma on a woman, Elizabeth Blackwell. She 
 was, or rather she became, the sister-in-law of 
 Lucy Stone ; and the work of these two women, 
 the one in medicine, the other for equal suffrage, 
 constituted the two necessary halves of one idea." 
 
 In 1848, when the first Suffrage convention was
 
 WOMAN SUFFRAGE AND THE PROFESSIONS. 217 
 
 held, twelve women were studying medicine in 
 different parts of the country. Dr. Elizabeth 
 Blackwell was studying that year in Geneva, and 
 when members of the convention wrote to con- 
 gratulate her, she said, in the course of her reply : 
 u Much has been said of the oppression that wo- 
 man suffers ; man is reproached with being unjust, 
 tyrannical, jealous. I do not so read human life." 
 Dr. Blackwell estimates that within ten years of 
 that time three hundred women had been gradu- 
 ated in medicine. In an address delivered in 1889 
 before the London Medical School for women in 
 London, Dr. Blackwell said : " I believe that the 
 department of medicine in which the great and 
 beneficent influence of women may be specially 
 exerted is that of the family physician. Not as 
 specialists, but as the trusted guides and wise 
 counsellors in all that concerns the physical welfare 
 of the family, they will find their most congenial 
 field of labor." All this was the exact opposite 
 of the spirit that prevailed in the Association with 
 which Lucy Stone was identified. She declaimed 
 against man's injustice ; and when it was pro- 
 posed, after the civil war had taught the power 
 of organization, to have a constitution and by-laws 
 for the Suffrage movement, Lucy Stone said that 
 she had felt the "thumb-screws and the soul- 
 screws," and did not wish to be placed under them 
 again. " Our duty is merely agitation.'' After a 
 stormy quarrel, she left to form a new association 
 in New England. Elizabeth Blackwell's name is
 
 218 WOMAN AND THE REPUBLIC. 
 
 conspicuous for its absence from Suffrage annals. 
 In the letter referred to she wrote : " The exclu- 
 sion and constraint woman suffers is not the result 
 of purposed injury or premeditated insult. It has 
 arisen naturally, without violence, because woman 
 has desired nothing more, has not felt the soul too 
 large for the body. But when woman, with 
 matured strength, with steady purpose, presents 
 her lofty claim, all barriers will give way, and 
 man will welcome, with a thrill of joy, the new 
 birth of his sister spirit." 
 
 The way in which barriers have fallen, and have 
 been removed by men, in order that woman may 
 enter the noble profession of medicine, is one of 
 the strange stories of this half century. The Civil 
 War, which taught us so much, helped greatly 
 in this. There were some genuine obstacles in 
 the way of woman's education in medicine, and 
 that they were genuine is proved by the fact that, 
 as rapidly as arrangements can be made so that 
 woman can have thorough training by and with 
 her own sex, this is being done. This trend is in 
 opposition to Suffrage action. Dr. Clemence 
 Lozier, who was so long at the head of the Suf- 
 frage association in New York City, was the most 
 persistent urger of mixed clinics, and marched in 
 to them at Bellevue, at the head of her classes, 
 defying the delicate instincts of both men and 
 women. 
 
 The struggle of the " new " school, which was 
 really as old as Hippocrates, who said four hun-
 
 WOMAN SUFFRAGE AND THE PROFESSIONS. 219 
 
 dred years before Christ that some remedies 
 acted by the rule of " contraries," and some by 
 the rule of " similarity," was long and hard com- 
 pared with that of the entrance of woman upon 
 the practice of medicine, although the latter 
 involved sex questions and the former only forms, 
 and professional prejudice did not die with 
 woman's adoption of it. 
 
 Dr. Jacobi says : " We are perfectly well aware 
 that industrial and professional competition are 
 entirely different matters from popular sover- 
 eignty. But when we find the same instincts 
 aroused, the same opposition excited, the same 
 arguments advanced, and the same determination 
 manifested, by trades unions, to exclude women 
 from trades, by learned societies to exclude them 
 from professions, by universities to exclude them 
 from learning, and by voters to exclude them from 
 the polls, we cannot avoid asking whether the 
 difference in the cases is not balanced by the 
 identity in the mental attitude of the opponents." 
 The best trades unions have admitted women to 
 their protective and wage associations, or, better 
 still, have helped them to form their own ; the 
 worst trades unions, the socialistic and anarchistic, 
 have claimed for them the right to vote. The 
 learned societies are admitting them profession- 
 ally as fast as they make themselves worthy. 
 The men who hold out against their admission to 
 men's universities are precisely the class of men 
 who have been most active in assisting to found
 
 220 WOMAN AND THE REPUBLIC. 
 
 for them equal colleges of their own, and they 
 are also the men who are most strenuous against 
 their admission to the polls. In medicine, while 
 co-education is deemed better than ignorance, the 
 tendency is to separate the sexes in study as fast 
 as facilities can be made equal. The opponents 
 of woman's progress and those of woman suffrage 
 are of opposite classes, and their mental attitudes 
 are entirely different. How much harm the 
 struggle for "popular sovereignty" for women 
 has done in hindering the progress of industrial 
 and professional competition, can be judged some- 
 what by the success of the latter and the failure 
 of the former in the highest fields. It is a 
 significant fact that women do not avail them- 
 selves of opportunities open to them in the pro- 
 fessions to the extent that it has been claimed 
 they would. The medical examination advertised 
 in January, 1896, by the New York State Civil 
 Service Commission for woman candidates, failed 
 for lack of applicants, although the salaries of 
 women in the State hospitals range from $1,000 
 to $1,500 a year. 
 
 The entrance of woman upon the legal profes- 
 sion raised constitutional questions as to the 
 enactment of law ; and so here, as in the matter 
 of the school suffrage, we see how carefully repub- 
 licanism guarded the post at which must stand 
 the sentinels of liberty. If it might involve law- 
 enforcement, woman could not practise law or 
 vote on the school question; but the Supreme
 
 WOMAN SUFFRAGE AND THE PROFESSIONS. 221 
 
 Court of the United States decided that " the 
 practising of any profession violates no law of the 
 Federal Constitution." 
 
 The study of law must prove of great benefit 
 to woman, though here again it has already been 
 shown that it is possible that the greatest prac- 
 tical advantage she will derive from entrance into 
 this noble profession will be from acquiring 
 knowledge of her country's laws, and how to take 
 care of her own property. Widows and un- 
 married women have almost invariably placed 
 their moneyed interests in the hands of a man, 
 when it would have been better for all concerned 
 that they should have spent some patient thought 
 on the details of their own affairs. The first 
 woman who was admitted to the bar in this State 
 (New York) was a teacher in the Albany Normal 
 College, and she still remains there, and the 
 women's classes for legal -study in New York City 
 have been largely composed of those who had no 
 intention of claiming admittance to the bar. That 
 women can and do enter all these professions with 
 credit to themselves, and that they thus enhance 
 the feeling of pride in their sex, which is a strong 
 impulse with women, is matter for profound con- 
 gratulation, and is evidence that the animus of 
 the Suffrage movement is not that which stirs 
 society.
 
 CHAPTEE VIII. 
 
 WOMAN SUFFRAGE AND EDUCATION. 
 
 THE seventh count in the Suffrage indictment 
 declared.: " He has denied her facilities for obtain- 
 ing a thorough education, all colleges being closed 
 against her." 
 
 Among the resolutions passed in the first Suf- 
 frage convention was one demanding : " Equal 
 rights in the universities," and the first petition 
 presented by Suffrage advocates contained a clause 
 asking that entrance to men's colleges be obtained 
 for women by legal enactment. We note that 
 this is far from being a demand for education for 
 women equal to that given to men in the univer- 
 sities. Men have founded colleges for women, 
 men and women have worked together in secur- 
 ing for woman every facility and opportunity for 
 education of the highest grade ; bat the " bar- 
 rier of sex " is not broken down in education. 
 But few of the older colleges for men admit 
 women, and those few, so far as I have learned 
 from conversation with members of their faculties, 
 speak of the arrangement as an experiment, and 
 give the need for economy, combined with a de- 
 sire to assist women, as a reason for making that 
 
 experiment. Meantime the knocking at men's 
 222
 
 WOMAN SUFFRAGE AND EDUCATION. 223 
 
 literary portals by Suffrage advocates has gone 
 on as vigorously as if women could obtain educa- 
 tion in no other way. 
 
 In the first Suffrage convention ever held in 
 Massachusetts these two resolutions were adopted : 
 " That political rights acknowledge no sex, and 
 therefore the word ' male ' should be stricken 
 from every State constitution ; " and " That every 
 effort to educate woman, until you accord to her 
 her rights, and arouse her conscience by the 
 weight of her responsibilities, is futile, and a 
 waste of labor." 
 
 The State in which these sentiments were 
 uttered abounded in fine schools for girls, among 
 which were Mount Holyoke and Wheaton semi- 
 naries. 
 
 A rapid survey of some of the educational con- 
 ditions that led to the state of things existing 
 when Suffrage associations were formed, will be 
 in place. Learning seemed incompatible with 
 worship early in the Christian era. The faith that 
 worked by love was " to the Jews a stumbling- 
 block, and to the Greeks foolishness." That 
 great battle between the felt and the compre- 
 hended, which in this era we have named the 
 conflict between science and religion, was decided 
 in the mind of the apostle to the Gentiles when 
 he wrote : " We know in part, and we prophesy 
 in part ; when that which is perfect is come, that 
 which is in part shall be done away." He re- 
 called the accusation, " Thou art beside thyself,
 
 224 WOMAN AND THE REPUBLIC. 
 
 much learning hath made thee mad," and he hast- 
 ened to assure the unlettered fishermen and the 
 simple and devout women who were followers of 
 Christ, that " all knowledge " was naught if they 
 had not love ; that even faith was vain if it led 
 to the rejection of the diviner wisdom that a little 
 child could understand. 
 
 The great learning of Augustine and the Fathers 
 brought into the Church pagan speculations of 
 God and morality, as well as pagan knowledge 
 in art, science, and literature. The Church be- 
 came corrupted, and a great outcry was made 
 against the learning itself, which was falsely sup- 
 posed to be the cause of the degeneration of 
 faith. Symonds says that during the Dark Ages 
 that followed upon this first battle between faith 
 and sight, the meaning of Latin words derived 
 from the Greek was lost; that Homer and 
 Yirgil were believed to be contemporaries, and 
 " Orestes Tragedia " was supposed to be the 
 name of an author. Milman says that " at the 
 Council of Florence in 1438, the Pope of Home 
 and the Patriarch of Constantinople, being igno- 
 rant, the one of Greek, and the other of Latin, 
 discoursed through an interpreter." It was near 
 the time of the Kef ormation that a German monk 
 announced in his convent that " a new language, 
 called Greek, had been invented, and a book had 
 been written in it, called the New Testament." 
 " Beware of it," he added, " It is full of daggers 
 and poison."
 
 WOMAN SUFFRAGE AND EDUCATION. 225 
 
 But the tradition of the love that book revealed 
 had crept into the heart of the world, and now 
 awoke. Through what struggles the " spirit of 
 all truth " promised by Christ was leading, and 
 would lead the world, the history of civilization 
 can tell. "Women shared in some degree the out- 
 ward benefits of the Revival of Learning. They 
 became in not a few instances Doctors of Law 
 and professors of the great universities that sprang 
 up, as well as teachers, transcribers, and illumi- 
 nators in the great nunneries. I could give a 
 long and honorable list of names of woman 
 writers and artists, in many lands, from Mediaeval 
 to modern times ; and one of the interesting 
 things revealed by such a record would be the 
 number who were working with, or were directly 
 inspired and helped by, a father or a brother. 
 The Court contained some women who, like Lady 
 Jane Grey, upheld the model of purity while 
 acquiring the learning that naturally accom- 
 panied wealth. But elegant letters had again 
 become the associate of moral and religious cor- 
 ruption in the courts, and the " ignorance of 
 preaching " arose to combat it, in Cromwell, the 
 Roundheads, the Dissenters, the Covenanters. 
 
 Yet sound learning was not to die that Chris- 
 tian truth might live. Of the band of Pilgrims 
 and Puritans that came first to our shores, about 
 one in thirty was college-bred. While subordinat- 
 ing book-knowledge to piety, they had learned 
 scarcely less the dangers of ignorance. Their 
 15
 
 226 WOMAN AND THE REPUBLIC. 
 
 first college was founded because of " the dread 
 of having an illiterate ministry to the churches 
 when our ministers shall lie in dust." Charles 
 Francis Adams says, in regard to the establish- 
 ment of Harvard College : " The records of Har- 
 vard University show that, of all the presiding 
 officers during the century and a half of colonial 
 days, but two were laymen, and not ministers of 
 the prevailing denomination." He further says 
 that " of all who in early times availed themselves 
 of such advantages as this institution could offer, 
 nearly half the number did so for the sake of 
 devoting themselves to the gospel. The prevail- 
 ing notion of the purpose of education was at- 
 tended with one remarkable consequence the 
 cultivation of the female mind was regarded with 
 utter indifference." 
 
 It was attended with still another remarkable 
 consequence, the effect of which is felt up to this 
 hour. Only men who were fitted for a profession 
 were given a college education. It is well within 
 my memory when it began to be seriously said : 
 " A college education is good for a boy, whether 
 he intends to follow a profession or not ; it will 
 make him a better business man, or even a better 
 farmer." The country girl is now, as a rule, better 
 educated than her brother. It also happened in 
 those earlier days, that the artist and the musician 
 were expected to attain knowledge by intuition, 
 save in technical branches. 
 
 The minister was, almost of necessity, like a
 
 WOMAN SUFFRAGE AND EDUCATION. 227 
 
 magistrate in these semi-religious colonies. The 
 fact of the breaking up into various sects, which 
 we sometimes incline to look upon with regret as 
 defeating Christian unity, really saved the essen- 
 tials of that unity by preventing the clerical mag- 
 istrate from establishing a church resting upon 
 state authority. It was obligatory that the civil 
 rulers should be learned, even at the expense of 
 those who carried on the business and the home. 
 
 During the first two hundred years of our 
 existence it would have been almost absurd to ex- 
 pect that women would be extensively educated 
 outside the home. The country was poor, and 
 struggling with new conditions, and great financial 
 crises swept over it. There were wars and rumors 
 of wars. Until after 1812-15 American independ- 
 ence was not an assured fact. Whatever may be 
 said of the present, woman's place in America 
 then was in the home, and nobly did she fill that 
 place. That she had not been wholly uninstructed 
 in even elegant learning, is evidenced by the share 
 she took in literature and in the discussion of 
 religious and public matters, and in such personal 
 records as that of Elder Faunce, who eulogized 
 Alice South worth Bradford for " her exertions in 
 promoting the literary improvement and the de- 
 portment of the rising generation." Dame schools 
 were early established for girls, and here were 
 often found the sons of the farmer and the me- 
 chanic. These were established in Massachusetts 
 in 1635. Late in 1700, girls were admitted
 
 228 WOMAN AND THE REPUBLIC. 
 
 through the summer to " Latin schools " where 
 boys were taught in winter, and in 1789 women 
 began to be associated with men as teachers. In 
 1771 Connecticut founded a system of free schools 
 in which boys and girls were taught. In 1794 
 the Moravians founded a school for girls at Beth- 
 lehem, Pennsylvania. Here were educated the 
 sisters of Peter Cooper, the mother of President 
 Arthur, and many women who became exponents 
 of culture. 
 
 New England began before this to have fine 
 private schools for girls, but no great step was 
 taken until Miss Hart (afterward Mrs. Willard) 
 had become so successful Avith her academy teach- 
 ing in her native town of Berlin, Connecticut, and 
 in Hartford, that three States simultaneously in- 
 vited her to establish schools within their borders. 
 She went to Massachusetts, but afterward, at the 
 solicitation of Governor Clinton, of New York, 
 she removed her school to Troy, in 1821. It was 
 a new departure, and there was ignorant prejudice 
 to overcome. Governor Clinton, in an appeal to 
 the legislature for aid, said : " I trust you will not 
 be deterred by commonplace ridicule from ex- 
 tending your munificence to this meritorious in- 
 stitution." They were not deterred. An act was 
 passed for the incorporation of the proposed in- 
 stitute, and another which gave to female acade- 
 mies a share of the literary fund. The citizens of 
 Troy contributed liberally, and the success of an 
 effort in woman's high education was assured.
 
 WOMAN SUFFRAGE AND EDUCATION. 229 
 
 As early as 1697 the Penn Charter School was 
 founded, and it has lived until to-day. Provision 
 was made " at the cost of the people called 
 Quakers," for " all children and servants, male and 
 female, the rich to be instructed at reasonable 
 rates, the poor to be maintained and schooled for 
 nothing." They also provided for " instruction 
 for both sexes in reading, writing, work, lan- 
 guages, arts and sciences." The boys and girls 
 have been taught separately, the girls' school be- 
 ing much behind the boys', neither Latin nor other 
 ancient language forming a part of their curricu- 
 lum. Friends are just beginning to discuss giving 
 higher education to girls. This is a fact espe- 
 cially significant in our discussion, because it has 
 always been claimed that the Quaker doctrine 
 that " souls have no sex " led them to place woman 
 on an " equality " with man before other sects had 
 thought of allowing that they were equals. Lu- 
 cretia Mott, Susan Anthony, Abby Kelley, and a 
 great body of the women who adopted the resolu- 
 tion that set forth the uselessness of educating 
 woman until she could vote, and who clamored 
 for her entrance to men's institutions, were all 
 of this sect that has kept its women generally 
 far behind in the acquisition of knowledge. 
 
 In 1845 Mrs. Willard was invited to address the 
 Teachers' Convention that met in Syracuse. She 
 prepared a paper in which she set forth the idea 
 that, " women, now sufficiently educated, should 
 be employed and furnished by the men as com-
 
 230 WOMAN AND THE REPUBLIC. 
 
 mittees, charged with the minute cares and super- 
 vision of the public schools," but declined the 
 honor tendered her of delivering it in person. 
 Sixty gentlemen from the convention visited her 
 at the hotel, and, at their earnest request, she read 
 the essay, which met with their emphatic approval 
 of the plan she proposed. The employment of 
 women in the common schools, and the system of 
 normal schools, were projected by her. 
 
 A Teachers' Convention was held in Rochester 
 in 1852. Miss Anthony, though a teacher, was 
 not in attendance upon it, but she records that she 
 went in and listened for a few hours to a discus- 
 sion of the causes that led to their profession be- 
 ing held in less esteem than those of the doctor, 
 lawyer, and minister. In her judgment, the ker- 
 nel of the matter was not alluded to, so she arose 
 and said : " Mr. President." She records that " at 
 length President Davies stepped to the front and 
 said in a tremulous, mocking tone, " What will 
 the lady have ? " "I wish, sir," she said, " to speak 
 to the question." " "What is the pleasure of the 
 convention ? " asked Mr. Davies. A gentleman 
 moved that she be heard ; another seconded the 
 motion ; whereupon, she records, " a discussion, 
 pro and con, followed, lasting full half an hour, 
 when a vote was taken of the men only, and per- 
 mission was granted by a small majority." She 
 adds that it was lucky for her that the thousand 
 women crowding that hall could not vote on the 
 question, for they would have given a solid " No."
 
 WOMAN S UFFEA GE AND ED UCA TION. 231 
 
 The president then announced "The lady can 
 speak." " It seems to me, gentlemen," said she, 
 " that none of you quite comprehend the cause of 
 the disrespect of which you complain. Do you 
 not see that, so long as society says a woman is 
 incompetent to be a lawyer, minister, or doctor, 
 but has ample ability to be a teacher, every man 
 of you who chooses this profession tacitly acknowl- 
 edges that he has no more brains than a woman ? 
 "Would you exalt your profession, exalt those who 
 labor with you. Would you make it more lucra- 
 tive, increase the salaries of the women engaged 
 in the noble work of educating our future Presi- 
 dents, Senators, and Congressmen." 
 
 Several thoughts arise in regard to this scene, 
 which was so strongly in contrast with the con- 
 duct of Mrs. Willard or any of the great educa- 
 tors. Miss Anthony gave no reason for her be- 
 lief that the entrance of woman upon the other 
 professions would raise either the status or the 
 wages of those engaged in the teacher's profession, 
 and as a matter of fact they have not done so. It 
 was not the society that cast scorn at woman's 
 "lack of brains" which assisted to remove the 
 natural prejudice against her assuming duties that 
 had been deemed unsuited to her physique and 
 her necessary work. 
 
 Meantime, one year before the Rochester meet- 
 ing was held, the first college for women had 
 been chartered at Auburn, New York, under the 
 name of " Auburn Female University." In 1853
 
 232 WOMAN AND THE REPUBLIC. 
 
 it was transferred to Elmira, and it was formally 
 opened in 1855. It was placed under the care of 
 the Congregational Church, but its charter re- 
 quired that it should have representative trustees 
 from five other denominations. Its course of 
 study for the degree of A. B. was essentially the 
 same that was then pursued in the men's colleges 
 of the State. It was expected to rely upon en- 
 dowment, which put woman's education upon a 
 new and more secure footing. 
 
 Suffrage leaders lose no opportunity to repre- 
 sent the Church as an enemy to woman's advance- 
 ment. Nothing can be further from the truth ; 
 and in striking evidence stand the colleges, which, 
 while unsectarian in spirit and in method, have 
 been established and cared for by special religious 
 denominations. Dr. Jacobi, in her book " Common 
 Sense," takes up the tale and says : " The Mount 
 Holyoke Seminary, the immediate successor of 
 that at Troy, was opened in 1837 by Miss Lyon, 
 in spite of the opposition of the clergy." Many 
 besides the clergy were opposed to the plan for 
 which Miss Lyon was endeavoring to raise money. 
 Her idea that the entire domestic work of the 
 establishment could be done by pupils and 
 teachers, was thought unwise and hopeless. In 
 that noble school, where thousands of women 
 have been educated, a great number have become 
 missionaries. When a Suffrage convention in 
 session in Worcester wrote to Miss Lyon, asking 
 her to interest herself in the wrongs of her sex,
 
 WOMAN SUFFRAGE AND EDUCATION. 233 
 
 she answered, " I cannot leave my work." Neither 
 was Yassar College founded from any impulse or 
 suggestion of Suffrage agitators, but in a spirit 
 exactly the opposite. The real impetus to its 
 founding came from Milo Parker Jewett, who 
 was born in Yermont in 1808, and was graduated 
 at Dartmouth College and at Andover Theologi- 
 cal Seminary. He was active in the formation 
 of the common-school system of Ohio, and in 1839 
 he founded The Judson Female Institute in Marion, 
 Alabama. He established a seminary for girls in 
 Poughkeepsie in 1855. He had studied law, and 
 became the friend and legal adviser of Matthew 
 Yassar, who, being unmarried, was casting about 
 for a method of disposing of his fortune. He 
 suggested to Mr. Yassar an endowed college for 
 women, and visited the universities and libraries 
 of Europe with a plan of organization in mind. 
 Mr. Yassar gladly accepted this great enlarge- 
 ment upon an idea that had lain dormant in his 
 own mind, and Yassar College was founded, Dr. 
 Jewett becoming its first president in 1862. 
 
 I may claim to have been beside the cradle of 
 Yassar College; for when Dr. Jewett resigned 
 the presidency in 1864, my father named the 
 successor who was appointed, Dr. John H. Kay- 
 mond, his life-long friend. Dr. Kaymond came 
 to Koch ester to discuss a plan of work, and, know- 
 ing my father's interest, I was on tiptoe to hear 
 about the new college. At my earnest solicita- 
 tion, he and Dr. Raymond and Prest. Anderson
 
 234 WOMAN AND THE REPUBLIC. 
 
 permitted me to be present at their discussions. 
 I learned to comprehend the value of womanliness 
 to the world by the estimate that those noble 
 educators put upon it. It was evident that they 
 were arranging for those for whose minds they 
 felt respect. They made no foolish remarks 
 about the superiority, inferiority, or equality of 
 the sexes, and had no contempt to throw upon 
 the old education of tutor, and library, and young 
 ladies' seminary. They did not sneer at the 
 u female mind," but they did talk of the feminine 
 mind as of something .as distinct in its essence 
 from the masculine mind as the feminine form 
 is distinct in its outlines. To "preserve wo- 
 manliness " was a task they felt they must fulfil, 
 or the women for whose good they labored would 
 one day call them to account. The dictum so fre- 
 quently in the mouths of Suffrage leaders, " There 
 is no sex in brain," would have been abhorrent 
 to them. In their view, there was as much sex in 
 brain as in hand ; and the education that did not, 
 through cultivation, emphasize that fact, would 
 be a lower and not a higher product. They 
 laid that intellectual corner-stone in love, and in 
 the faith that the same womanly spirit which, 
 when there was not college education enough to 
 go round, had said, " Give it to the boys, because 
 their work must be public," would find, through 
 the glad return the boys were making, a way to 
 teach the world still higher lessons of womanly 
 character and influence. Since that time, college
 
 WOMAN SUFFRAGE AND EDUCATION. 235 
 
 after college has arisen without a dream on the 
 part of the founders, faculties, or students that 
 " every effort to educate woman, until you accord 
 to her the right to vote, is futile and a waste of 
 labor," and it may well be that the women edu- 
 cated in these colleges will decide that, because 
 political rights do acknowledge sex, therefore the 
 word "male" should not be stricken from any 
 State constitution. 
 
 Before the committee of the New York State 
 Constitutional Convention in 1894, Mr. Edward 
 Lauterbach, who was arguing in favor of woman 
 suffrage, said : " It was only after the establish- 
 ment of the Willard School at Troy, only after 
 its noble founder, believing that women and men 
 were formed in the same mould, successfully 
 tried the experiment of educating women in the 
 higher branches, that steps for higher education 
 became generally taken." If Mr. Lauterbach 
 imagines that Mrs. Willard was in the most dis- 
 tant way an advocate of woman's doing the same 
 work as man in the same way, he is unfamiliar 
 with her life and work. Mrs. Willard, in setting 
 forth her ideal of woman's education, said " Edu- 
 cation should be adapted to female character and 
 duties. To do this would raise the character of 
 man. . . . Why may not housewifery be reduced 
 to a system as well as the other arts ? If women 
 were properly fitted for instruction, they would 
 be likely to teach children better than the other 
 sex ; they could afford to do it cheaper ; and men
 
 236 WOMAN AND THE REPUBLIC. 
 
 might be at liberty to add to the wealth of the 
 nation by any of the thousand occupations from 
 which women are necessarily debarred." Old- 
 fashioned wisdom, but choicely good. Mr. Lau- 
 terbach further said : " What wonder that, being 
 so fully equipped in every mental attribute, in 
 every intellectual qualification, they will be able 
 not only to cast a vote but to take practical part 
 in the administration of the government ? " 
 
 A female Solon would be a woman still, and 
 in a democracy the intellectual is not the only 
 qualification needed. This certainly was the 
 belief of Mrs. Willard, and in 1868, when the 
 Suffrage leaders were holding a convention in 
 Washington, and were urging that Congress 
 should pass a sixteenth amendment admitting 
 women to suffrage, Almira Lincoln Phelps, sister 
 of Mrs. Willard, herself an educator and an 
 author of text-books, wrote to Isabella Beecher 
 Hooker : " Hoping you will receive kindly what 
 I am about to write, I will proceed without 
 apologies. I have confidence in your nobleness 
 of soul, and that you know enough of me to 
 believe in my devotion to the best interests of 
 woman. I can scarcely realize that you are giving 
 your name and influence to a cause which, with 
 some good, but, as I think, misguided women, 
 numbers among its advocates others Avith loose 
 morals. ... If we could with propriety petition 
 the Almighty to change the condition of the 
 sexes, and let men take a turn in bearing chil-
 
 WOMAN SUFFRAGE AND EDUCATION. 237 
 
 dreu and in suffering the physical ailments pecul- 
 iar to women, which render them unfit for certain 
 positions and business, why, in this case, if we 
 really wish to be men, and thought God would 
 change the established order, we might make our 
 petition ; but why ask Congress to make us men ? 
 Circumstances drew me from the quiet domestic 
 life while I was yet young, but success in 
 labors which involved publicity, and which may 
 have been of advantage to society, was never 
 considered as an equivalent to my own heart 
 for such a loss of retirement. In the name of my 
 sainted sister, Emma Willard, and of my friend 
 Lydia Sigourney, and, I think I might say, in the 
 name of the women of the past generation who 
 have been prominent as writers and educators 
 (the exception may be made of Mary Wollstone- 
 craft, Frances Wright, and a few licentious 
 French writers) in our own country and in Europe, 
 let me urge the high-souled and honorable of our 
 sex to turn their energies into that channel which 
 will enable them to act for the true interests of 
 their sex." 
 
 In a woman's club, last winter, a New York 
 teacher, Miss Helen Dawes Brown, a graduate of 
 Yassar College, founder of the Woman's Univer- 
 sity Club and also one of the founders of Bar- 
 nard College, in a speech said in part : " The 
 young girl who doesn't dance, who doesn't play 
 games, who can't skate and can't row, is a girl to 
 be pitied. She is losing a large part of what
 
 238 WOMAN AND THE REPUBLIC. 
 
 Chesterfield calls the 'joy and titivation of 
 youth.' If our young girl has learned to be good, 
 teach her not to disregard the externals of good- 
 ness. Let our girls, in college and out, learn to 
 be agreeable. A girl's education should, first of 
 all, be directed to fitting her for the things of 
 home. We talk of woman as if the only domestic 
 relations were those of wife and mother. Let us 
 not forget that she is also a granddaughter, a 
 daughter, a sister, an aunt. I should like to see 
 her made her best in all these characters, before 
 she undertakes public duties. The best organiza- 
 tion in the world is the home. "Whatever in the 
 education of girls draws them away from that, is 
 an injury to civilization." 
 
 At the close of an article in the " Outlook," 
 written by Elizabeth Fisher Kead, of Smith 
 College, she said, speaking of their last adaptation 
 of athletics : " From the beginning, the policy of 
 Smith College has been, not to duplicate the 
 means of development offered in men's colleges, 
 but to provide courses and methods of study that 
 should do for women what the men's courses did 
 for them. Emphasis has been put, not on the 
 resemblances between men and women, but rather 
 on the differences. The effort has not been to 
 turn out new women, capable of doing anything 
 man can do, from walking thirty miles to solving 
 the problems of higher mathematics. Instead of 
 this, the college has tried to develop its students 
 along natural womanly lines, not along the lines
 
 WOMAN SUFFRAGE AND EDUCATION. 2B9 
 
 that would naturally be followed in training 
 men." 
 
 This sounds strangely like Mrs. Willard, who 
 would be the first to rejoice in the new education 
 and in the old spirit that it can develop. Of 
 course Suffrage claims to have the same end in 
 view. Every college woman must decide for her- 
 self where she will stand on the question. So far, 
 there never has been any open affiliation between 
 the colleges and the Suffrage movement. We 
 wait to hear a final verdict. 
 
 A contributor to the Suffrage department of 
 the Woman's Edition of the Rochester " Post- 
 Express," March 26, 1896, said : " Will Rochester 
 give to its daughters the same advantages as to 
 its sons, or will it say to the girls who have no 
 money to leave home and seek in Smith and 
 Wellesley the culture they cannot procure here : 
 * You cannot be thoroughly educated ; you have 
 no money ; you can have no education ; sit and 
 spin ; bake and brew but don't bother about 
 higher education,' or will the University of 
 Rochester recognize the one splendid opportunity 
 that awaits it, the one last chance to take its 
 proper place and become all that the highest 
 American standards demand for a University ? " 
 
 The time has not yet fully come when these same 
 sentimentalists shall say to the faculty and trus- 
 tees of Yassar, Wellesley and Smith : " Will you 
 not give to the boys of Poughkeepsie, North- 
 hampton, and Wellesley the same advantages as
 
 240 WOMAN AND THE REPUBLIC. 
 
 to the girls ? Or will you say to them : ' You 
 cannot be thoroughly educated ; you have no 
 money ; you can have no education ; work in the 
 shop or on the farm, but don't bother about 
 Tiigher education.' " This is Suffrage logic, and 
 there is no more reason why the educational in- 
 stitutions in which men study from the age of 
 eighteen to twenty-two should be invaded by 
 women of that age, than why women's institutions 
 should be invaded by men. Yet this would be 
 the destruction of our women's colleges. When 
 Miss Anthony headed a delegation that went 
 bodily to force co-education on Rochester Uni- 
 versity, she was told that classes open to women 
 had been connected with the college for years. 
 
 The kind of education best suited to the idea of 
 Suffrage is a training in political history and pres- 
 ent political issues; but the women who have 
 talked loudly and vaguely of the right of suffrage 
 for years have been the last to present such 
 knowledge. I have read their " History," attended 
 their conventions, glanced at their magazines, but 
 never have come upon the discussion of a single 
 public issue. I think those most familiar with it 
 will bear me out if I make the statement that 
 their principal periodical, " The Woman's Jour- 
 nal," edited by Mary A. Livermore, Julia Ward 
 Howe, Mr. Blackwell, and Alice Stone Blackwell, 
 has not contained any presentations of questions 
 of public policy in the past ten years. 
 
 Those whose names are signed to the Suffrage
 
 WOMAN SUFFRAGE AND EDUCATION. 241 
 
 Woman's Bible, and who are therefore respon- 
 sible for that disgraceful effusion, have little right 
 to claim to be intelligent instructors of their sex. 
 With an ignorance that is monumental, Frances 
 Ellen Burr glories in the fact that " the Revising 
 Committee refer to a woman's translation of the 
 Bible as their ultimate authority for the Greek, 
 Latin, and Hebrew text," and they add that 
 " Julia Smith, this distinguished scholar," is the 
 only person, man or woman, who ever made a 
 translation of the Bible without help. They say : 
 " Wy cliff made a translation from the Yulgate as- 
 sisted by Nicholas of Hereford. He was not suffici- 
 ently f amilar with Hebrew and Greek to translate 
 from those tongues. Coverdale's translation was 
 not done alone. Tyndale, in his translation, had 
 the assistance of Frye, of William Eoye, and also 
 of Miles Coverdale. Julia Smith translated the 
 whole Bible absolutely alone, without consultation 
 with any one " ! Again they say, " King James 
 appointed fifty-four men of learning to translate 
 the Bible. Seven of them died, and forty-seven 
 carried the work on. Compare this corps of 
 workers with one little woman performing the 
 Herculean task without one suggestion or word 
 of advice from mortal man " ! Yes, compare it ! 
 Uncultured Julia Smith, stirred by the Millerite 
 prophecies, did the best she could to enlighten 
 her own mind, and should be honored for so 
 doing ; but what is to be said of the women who 
 
 in this dav> in cool print, are willing to show that 
 16
 
 242 WOMAN AND THE REPUBLIC. 
 
 they have no comprehension of her grotesque 
 errors or of the difficulties that beset a real 
 scholar in his noble task ? Protest at woman's 
 educational deprivation comes with ill-grace from 
 those who have thus revealed their own lack of 
 knowledge of the oldest literature in the world, 
 the model of poetry and prose, the guardian of the 
 purity of our English speech. 
 
 Educated women desire that woman should do 
 all that strength and time allow in the care of the 
 public schools. The school suffrage ought to be 
 a boon for them. But it does not, so far, look as 
 if women could make it so. The figures of the 
 school vote of women in Connecticut, for three 
 years, occasion serious question whether the use 
 of the ballot is the way in which woman is to 
 effect anything. In Staten Island, ignorance in 
 women voted out education, and a tremendous 
 effort had to be made to vote it in again. The 
 number of men who voted at the last general 
 election in Connecticut was about 164,000. The 
 women outnumber the men, but the following 
 table represents the school vote in the State of 
 Emma Willard. It certainly does not represent 
 the amount of interest taken in education, nor in 
 the common schools : 
 
 COUNTIES. 1893. 1894. 1895. 
 
 Hartford..- 1293 1186 689 
 
 New Haven 973 949 570 
 
 New London 364 373 185 
 
 Fairfield . , 273 198 126
 
 WOMAN SUFFRAGE AND EDUCATION. 243 
 
 COUNTIES. 1893. 1894. 1895. 
 
 Windham 176 182 148 
 
 Litchfield 159 85 50 
 
 Middlesex 60 136 101 
 
 Tolland 372 137 37 
 
 This gives the results from all but three or four 
 towns in the State. Aside from any other con- 
 siderations, the uncertainty attending the vote of 
 an element whose first call is elsewhere than at 
 the polls, is a menace to the welfare of the schools 
 as well as of republican institutions. 
 
 One of the grievances of the Suffrage leaders 
 lay in the fact that the literary women of the 
 country would express no sympathy with their 
 efforts. Poets and authors in general were de- 
 nounced. Gail Hamilton, who had the good of 
 woman in her heart, who was better informed on 
 public affairs than perhaps any woman in the 
 United States, and whose trenchant pen cut deep 
 and spared not, always reprobated the cause. 
 Mrs. Stowe stood aloof, and so did Catherine 
 Beecher, though urged to the contrary course 
 by Henry "Ward Beecher and Isabella Beecher 
 Hooker. In a letter to Mrs. Cutler, Catherine 
 Beecher said : " I am not opposed to women's 
 speaking in public to any who are willing to hear, 
 nor am I opposed to women's preaching, sanctioned 
 as it is by a prophetic apostle as one of the mil- 
 lennial results. Nor am I opposed to a woman's 
 earning her own independence in any lawful call- 
 ing, and wish many more were open to her which
 
 244 WOMAN AND THE REPUBLIC. 
 
 are now closed. Nor am I opposed to the organ- 
 ization and agitation of women, as women, to set 
 forth the wrongs suffered by great multitudes of 
 our sex, which are multiform and most humiliat- 
 ing. Nor am I opposed to women's undertaking 
 to govern boys and men they always have, and 
 they always will. Nor am I opposed to the claim 
 that women have equal rights with men. I rather 
 claim that they have the sacred superior rights 
 that God and good men accord to the weak and 
 defenceless, by which they have the easiest work, 
 the most safe and comfortable places, and the 
 largest share of all the most agreeable and desir- 
 able enjoyments of this life. My main objection 
 to the Woman-Suffrage organization is this, that 
 a wrong mode is employed to gain a right object. 
 The right object sought is, to remedy the wrongs 
 and relieve the sufferings of great multitudes of 
 our sex ; the wrong mode is that which aims to 
 enforce by law instead of by love. It is one 
 which assumes that man is the author and abettor 
 of all these wrongs, and that he must be restrained 
 and regulated by constitutions and laws, as the 
 chief and most trustworthy methods. I hold that 
 the fault is as much, or more, with women than 
 with men, inasmuch as we have all the power we 
 need to remedy the wrongs complained of, and 
 yet we do not use it for that end. It is my deep 
 conviction that all reasonable and conscientious 
 men of our age, and especially of our country, are 
 not only willing but anxious to provide for the
 
 WOMAN SUFFRAGE AND EDUCATION. 245 
 
 good of our sex. They will gladly bestow all that 
 is just, reasonable, and kind, whenever we unite in 
 asking in the proper spirit and manner. In the 
 half a century since I began to work for the edu- 
 cation and relief of my sex, I have succeeded so 
 largely by first convincing intelligent and benevo- 
 lent women that what I aimed at was right and 
 desirable, and then securing their influence with 
 their fathers, brothers, and husbands, and always 
 with success. Why not take the shorter course, 
 and ask to have the men do for us what we might 
 do for ourselves if we had the ballot ? Now if 
 women are all made voters, it will be their duty to 
 vote, and also to qualify themselves for that duty. 
 But already women have more than they can do 
 well in all that appropriately belongs to them, and, 
 to add the civil and political duties of men, would 
 be deemed a measure of injustice and oppression 
 by those who are opposed." 
 
 Miss Beecher, like Mrs. Willard and Mrs. 
 Phelps, made text-books for the use of her own 
 seminaries, and her Arithmetic, and Mental and 
 Moral Philosophy, and Applied Theology, were 
 among the educational forces of her day. It is 
 one of the significant signs of the times that science 
 and education, as well as philanthropy, are oc- 
 cupying themselves just now with childhood and 
 motherhood and housewifery. Mrs. Willard's 
 high ideal of womanliness is beginning to be set 
 forth by the electric light of modern thought.
 
 CHAPTEK IX. 
 
 WOMAN SUFFRAGE AND THE CHURCH. 
 
 THE eighth count in the Suffrage indictment 
 reads : " lie allows her in Church, as well as in 
 State, but a subordinate position, claiming Apos- 
 tolic authority for her exclusion from the ministry, 
 and, with some exceptions, from any public par- 
 ticipation in the affairs of the Church." 
 
 More than thirty years later than this, Mrs. 
 Stanton, Miss Anthony, and Mrs. Gage wrote in 
 the preface to their " History of Woman Suffrage :" 
 " American men may quiet their consciences 
 with the delusion that no such injustice exists in 
 this country as in Eastern nations. Though, 
 with the general improvement in our institutions, 
 woman's condition must inevitably have improved 
 also, yet the same principle that degrades her 
 in Turkey insults her here. Custom forbids a 
 woman there to enter a mosque, or call the hour 
 for prayers ; here it forbids her a voice in Church 
 councils or State legislatures. . . . The Church, 
 too, took alarm, knowing that with the freedom 
 and education acquired in becoming a component 
 part of the Government, woman would not only 
 
 outgrow the power of the priesthood, and religious 
 246
 
 WOMAN SUFFRAGE AND THE CHURCH. 247 
 
 superstitions, but would also invade the pulpit, 
 interpret the Bible anew from her own stand- 
 point, and claim an equal voice in all ecclesias- 
 tical councils. With fierce warnings and denun- 
 ciations from the pulpit, and false interpretations 
 of Scripture, women have been intimidated and 
 misled, and their religious feelings have been 
 played upon for their more complete subjugation. 
 While the general principles of the Bible are in 
 favor of the most enlarged freedom and equality 
 of the race, isolated texts have been used to 
 block the wheels of progress in all periods ; thus 
 bigots have defended capital punishment, intem- 
 perance, slavery, polygamy, and the subjection of 
 woman. The creeds of all nations make obedience 
 to man the corner-stone of her religious character. 
 Fortunately, however, more liberal minds are 
 now giving us higher and purer expositions of 
 the Scriptures." 
 
 It is fifteen years since these statements were 
 made, and we have now the first instalment of 
 " the Bible interpreted anew from her own stand- 
 point," which presumably issues, in their view, 
 from more liberal minds, and is higher and purer 
 than the old one. In the Introduction to that 
 Suffrage Woman's Bible (which is as yet only a 
 commentary on the Pentateuch), Mrs. Stanton 
 says: "From the inauguration of the movement 
 for woman's emancipation the Bible has been 
 used to hold her in her ' divinely appointed sphere ' 
 prescribed by the Old and New Testaments.
 
 i>48 WOMAN AND THE REPUBLIC. 
 
 The canon and civil law, Church and State, 
 priests and legislators, all political parties and 
 religious denominations, have alike taught that 
 woman was made after man, of man, and for 
 man, an inferior being, subject to man. Creeds, 
 codes, Scriptures, and statutes are all based on 
 this idea. The fashions, forms, ceremonies, and 
 customs of society, church ordinances, and disci- 
 pline, all grow out of this idea. ... So perverted 
 is the religious element in her nature, that with 
 faith and works she is the chief support of the 
 Church and Clergy, the very powers that make 
 her emancipation impossible." 
 
 1 know that many believers in Suffrage are also 
 believers in the Bible and in denominational Chris- 
 tianity. Mrs. Helen Montgomery says, in the 
 "Woman's edition of the Rochester " Post-Express," 
 that one reason for her favorable consideration of 
 it is, that " Two-thirds of the membership of the 
 Christian church cannot express their conviction 
 at the polls, since women may not vote." " Much 
 of the callousness of politicians to church opinion," 
 she adds, " comes from the knowledge that that 
 opinion is backed by few votes." I also know 
 that many of those who disbelieve in Suffrage 
 may also disbelieve in the Bible, the clergy, and 
 the Church. I further recognize the fact that the 
 church and religion are not synonymous terms. 
 I have no attacks to make, and no special plead- 
 ing to do. I am discussing the question of 
 Suffrage as I find it in the writing and the speech
 
 WOMAN SUFFRAGE AND THE CHURCH. 249 
 
 of its proposers and its present conspicuous advo- 
 cates. Each American woman has this mighty 
 problem before her, and she must settle it accord- 
 ing to her own conscience and best enlightenment. 
 
 Mrs. Stanton admits with shame that woman 
 is one of the chief supporters of the Church. 
 Mrs. Montgomery says with delight that she 
 forms two-thirds of the Christian Church. Indi- 
 vidual members of Suffrage organizations may 
 be in sympathy with Christianity, or against it ; 
 but the movement itself cannot be on both sides 
 of this question. What is its record ? I will en- 
 deavor to trace it, and will then, as best I may, 
 attempt to say a few words upon the general 
 subject of the " subordination of woman." 
 
 In the course of the first clause of their accu- 
 sation, the women say : " Claiming Apostolic 
 authority for her exclusion from the ministry." 
 In view of the fact that Paul frequently alludes to 
 the teaching and ministrations of women, it has 
 come to be generally thought among Christian 
 scholars, I believe, that this injunction that they 
 " keep silence in the churches," referred to the 
 propriety of their conduct in the moral, or rather 
 the immoral, atmosphere by which the Church 
 at Corinth was surrounded. This seems reason- 
 able, because it may be observed that, in writing 
 to Timothy, who was in Macedonia, to Titus, who 
 was in Crete, and to the Church at Ephesus, 
 while he repeats his general injunctions of 
 woman's submission to man, and especially to her
 
 250 WOMAN AND THE REPUBLIC. 
 
 husband, he says nothing relative to her public 
 work in the church. But if Paul had been 
 writing to the church in New England, in 1634, 
 and in New York in 1774, his injunction to silence 
 might well have been applied to the first woman 
 preachers to whom Americans were called upon 
 to listen. When Anne Hutchinson, in Boston, 
 preached that "the power of the Holy Spirit 
 dwelleth perfectly in every believer, and the in- 
 ward revelations of her own spirit, and the con- 
 scious judgment of her own mind are of authority 
 paramount to any word of God," she shook the 
 young colony to its foundation, as no man had 
 shaken it. The militia that had been ordered to 
 the Pequot war refused to march, because she 
 had proclaimed their chaplain to be " under a 
 covenant of works, and not under a covenant of 
 grace." Her influence, and not her ballot, if she 
 had one, threatened anarchy in the state, and 
 caused a schism in the church such as might 
 have crushed out the life from the infant body to 
 which Paul was writing. 
 
 In 1774 appeared the next public woman 
 preacher, Ann Lee. She proclaimed that God 
 was revealed a dual being, male and female, to 
 the Jews ; that Jesus revealed to the world God 
 as a Father ; and that she, Ann Lee, " Mother 
 Ann," was God's revelation of the Mother, " the 
 bearing spirit of the creation of God." She 
 founded the sect of Shakers, whose main articles 
 of belief, besides the one above mentioned, were :
 
 WOMAN SUFFRAGE AND THE CHURCH. 251 
 
 community of goods ; non-resistance to force, even 
 in self-defence; the sinfulness of all human au- 
 thority, and consequently the sinfulness of partici- 
 pation in any form of government ; absolute 
 separation of the sexes, and consequently no mar- 
 riage institution. Her mission as " the Christ of 
 the Second Appearing," began with her announce- 
 ment of God's wrath upon all marriage, and 
 the public renunciation of her own. In New 
 York, as in New England, her proclamations 
 against government and war tended directly to 
 anarchy, and in the momentous year 1776 she 
 was for that reason imprisoned in Poughkeepsie, 
 whence she was released by Governor Clinton's 
 pardon. 
 
 The next pulpitless preacher, in the succession 
 we are considering, appeared in this country in 
 1828. Her name was Frances "Wright. She was 
 a person of totally different mind and methods 
 from Anne Hutchinson and Ann Lee. She was 
 professedly an enemy of religion. Anne Hutchin- 
 son attacked church and state in the name of 
 Christian human perfection. Ann Lee attacked 
 church and state in the name of woman ; she 
 preached communism and separation of the sexes 
 in the name of Christ ; she taught the abolition of 
 marriage. Frances Wright preached communism 
 and sex license in the name of irreligion. In 
 opening the columns of the " Free Inquirer " to 
 discussion, in New York, in 1828, she said : "Re- 
 ligion is true and in that case the conviction of
 
 252 WOMAN AND THE REPUBLIC. 
 
 its truth should dictate every human word and 
 govern every sublunary action, or it is a decep- 
 tion. If it is a deception, it is not useless only, it 
 is mischievous ; it is mischievous by its idle ter- 
 rors ; it is mischievous by its false morality ; it is 
 mischievous by its hypocrisy ; by its fanaticism ; 
 by its dogmatism ; by its threats ; by its hopes ; 
 by its promises ; and last, though not least, by its 
 waste of public time and public money." "While 
 deciding that it was a deception, she revealed 
 the evil results to which abandonment of all faith 
 can lead a woman with a clever brain and a fear- 
 less tongue. She constantly denounced religion 
 as the source of all injustice and bigotry and of 
 the " enslavement of women." 
 
 The editors of the " Suffrage History" say : " As 
 early as 1828 the standard of the Christian party 
 in politics was openly unfurled. Frances Wright 
 had long been aware of its insidious efforts, and 
 its reliance upon women for its support. Ignorant, 
 superstitious, devout, woman's general lack of 
 education made her a fitting instrument for the 
 work of thus undermining the republic. Having 
 deprived her of her just rights, the country was 
 now to find in woman its most dangerous foe. 
 Frances "Wright lectured that winter in the large 
 cities of the western and middle States, striving to 
 rouse the nation to the new danger which threat- 
 ened it. The clergy at once became her most 
 bitter opponents. The cry of ' infidel ' was started 
 on every side, though her work was of vital im-
 
 WOMAN SUFFRAGE AND THE CHUECH. 258 
 
 portance to the country and undertaken from the 
 purest philanthropy." 
 
 It was high time that a Christian and a non- 
 Christian party in politics should unfurl a banner ; 
 for to the dauntless courage of the land from 
 which she came Scotland she added the pol- 
 ished manner of the country from which came 
 D'Arusmont, the husband from whom she was 
 soon parted. To the zeal of the Covenanter, the 
 moral blackness of the infidel, and the political 
 creed of the Commune, she united the doctrine c2 
 Free Love. As she set these forth with blandish- 
 ments of speech and manner, the country did indeed 
 find in this woman a most dangerous foe. "When 
 " Fanny Wright societies " sprang up in New 
 York and the West, horror might well be felt by 
 lovers of the Republic. 
 
 Lucretia Mott was the next public preacher in 
 this succession. Pure in personal character, lofty 
 in spirit, winning in address, she took for her 
 motto, " Truth for Authority, not Authority for 
 Truth." As authority for that truth, she took 
 Elias Hicks. 
 
 Dr. Jacobi, in " Common Sense," says : " The 
 abolitionists were declared to have set aside the 
 laws of God when they allowed women to speak 
 in public : and, by a pastoral letter, the Congrega- 
 tional churches of Massachusetts were directed to 
 defend themselves against heresy, by closing their 
 doors to the innovators. The Methodists de- 
 nounced the Garrisonian societies as no-govern-
 
 254 WOMAN AND THE REPUBLIC. 
 
 ment, no-Sabbath, no-church, no-Bible, no-mar- 
 riage, women's rights societies." Not the 
 Methodists alone, but the Congregationalists, the 
 Presbyterians, the Episcopalians, the Baptists, the 
 Unitarians, the TJniversalists, and the Quakers so 
 denounced that faction of them in which cul- 
 minated many of the doctrines of Anne Hutchin- 
 son, Ann Lee, Frances Wright, and Lucretia 
 Mott. 
 
 In an appeal to the women of New York, in 
 1860, signed by Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Lydia 
 Mott, Ernestine Rose, Martha C. Wright, and 
 Susan B. Anthony, we read : " The religion of 
 our day teaches that, in the most sacred relations 
 of the race, the woman must ever be subject to 
 the man ; that in the husband centres all power 
 and learning ; that the difference in position be- 
 tween husband and wife is as vast as that between 
 Christ and the Church ; and woman struggles to 
 hold the noble impulses of her nature in abeyance 
 to opinions uttered by a Jewish teacher, which, 
 alas ! the mass believe to be the will of God." 
 
 In 1895, among the names of those responsible 
 for the Suffrage Woman's Bible, we find three to 
 which the title " Rev." is prefixed. The opening 
 commentary on the first verses of Genesis, where 
 the creation of man is described, says : " Instead 
 of three male personages, as generally represented, 
 a Heavenly Father, Mother, and Son would seem 
 more rational. The first step in the elevation of 
 woman to her true position, as an equal factor in
 
 WOMAN SUFFRAGE AND THE CHURCH. 255 
 
 human progress, is the cultivation of the religious 
 sentiment in regard to her dignity and equality, 
 the recognition by the rising generation of an ideal 
 Heavenly Mother, to whom their prayers should 
 be addressed, as well as to a Father." Here is 
 Ann Lee's doctrine revived with a mocking sug- 
 gestion that savors more of Frances Wright than 
 of its poor, half-crazed author. The soul-suffi- 
 ciency of Ann Hutchinson, the spiritual anarchy 
 of Lucretia Mott, the infidelity and the veiled 
 coarseness of Frances Wright, have all found fit 
 setting in this commentary on the Pentateuch. I 
 know that Miss Anthony repudiates the Suffrage 
 Woman's Bible in the name of the Association of 
 which she is President. It certainly does not 
 represent the faith or the culture or the doctrines 
 of many who belong to that body ; but she can- 
 not really repudiate it for herself or for them. It 
 was promised in the History of which she is co- 
 editor, it was foreshadowed in her circular quoted 
 above, as well as in innumerable speeches of hers 
 in convention. Those Christian and philanthropic 
 bodies that have attached themselves to the Suf- 
 frage movement have this book to account for 
 and with. Whatever they may personally decide 
 to think or say of it, it is the consummate blossom 
 of the spirit of the Suffrage movement, and the 
 names it bears upon its title-page represent the 
 varied classes that have worked for the political 
 enfranchisement of woman. By the world out- 
 side it will so be dealt with.
 
 256 WOMAN AND THE REPUBLIC. 
 
 Few movements have been started, especially 
 among women, that did not professedly stand 
 upon high moral and religious ground. Fourier- 
 ism was superhuman in its intention, in this 
 country, at least. Free-thinking hopes to deliver 
 the soul from the bondage of superstition in all 
 religion. Mormonism was founded as " the Church 
 of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints." Commun- 
 ism at Oneida was professedly built upon the doc- 
 trine of human perfection in Christian love. The 
 disaster to the soul is in proportion to the amount 
 of perversion of a living faith. Every movement 
 must be judged, not by what its advocates sup- 
 pose themselves to believe, but by that which time 
 proves they do believe. 
 
 But to return to the Suffrage charge. " Ameri- 
 can men may quiet their consciences with the de- 
 lusion that no such injustice exists in this country 
 as in Eastern nations. Though, with the general 
 improvement in our institutions, woman's condi- 
 tion must inevitably have improved also, yet the 
 same principle that degrades her in Turkey in- 
 sults her here." American men may quiet their 
 consciences, while striving to enlighten them fur- 
 ther. The answer to Mohammedanism is Turkey. 
 The answer to Christianity is America. Ceremo- 
 nial uncleanness is absolutely unlike religious and 
 social orderliness in the distribution of duties. 
 How came there to be " general improvement in 
 our institutions?" There has been no improve- 
 ment in Turkey, in China, in India, or in Japan,
 
 WOMAN SUFFRAGE AND THE CHURCH. 257 
 
 except such as is creeping back from the Chris- 
 tendom of which these Suifragists speak with a 
 sneer. Freedom and education have not been, ap- 
 preciably advanced by " woman's becoming a com- 
 ponent part of the government " in any land. 
 The lands where she has the most apparent gov- 
 ernmental control are the ones that are least edu- 
 cated and least free among those of modern civili- 
 zation. . ; 
 
 The church is an ever-growing body, and its 
 clergy hold widely differing beliefs. The' Egyp- 
 tian priesthood guarded the sacred mysteries and 
 ruled the state. Through the utmost that natural 
 religion can do for man, they had gleaned the 
 secret of a Supreme Maker and Euler of the uni- 
 verse. Moses, who was " learned in all their wis- 
 dom," led the first exiles across the sea to find 
 " freedom to worship God," and, from that day 
 to this, the ministers of religion have stood as 
 public guard over the mysteries of faith and, in 
 the beginnings of each civilization, have ruled the 
 state. Whenever they have forgotten the lesson 
 that Moses taught, the lesson that Paul more 
 clearly taught, that to God alone is any soul re- 
 sponsible, they have proved stumbling-blocks to 
 progress. It is true that religious bigots, as Suf- 
 frage writers say, have " defended capital punish- 
 ment, intemperance, slavery, polygamy, and the 
 subjection of woman." But capital punishment is 
 defended by many besides bigots. Intemperance 
 finds not only its strongest but its most effective 
 17
 
 258 WOMAN AND THE REPUBLIC. 
 
 foes in the Christian ministry and the Christian 
 church. Slavery in our country rent in twain 
 several great religious bodies. James G. Birney 
 says that " probably nine-tenths of the Abolition- 
 ists were church-members." With polygamy came 
 woman's subjection and woman suffrage into our 
 free States. And the bigots outside the Christian 
 ministry and church must share the same con- 
 demnation with any who, professing freedom, 
 have yet forgotten the injunction of the Bible and 
 the Christ. 
 
 " She would invade the pulpit." Invasion seems 
 a strange word to use in regard to woman's en- 
 trance upon one of the highest of human duties. 
 A pulpitless teacher she is and always has been. 
 Missionary women have taught multitudes of 
 beings. The Salvation lassie has no thought of 
 invasion, or of self-exaltation, when she leads the 
 service of a thousand souls ; and I am not willing 
 to believe that a single woman who has entered the 
 regular ministry has any more. It is the spirit 
 of Suffrage that looks upon woman's advance as 
 an attack. 
 
 But times have changed, say Suffrage leaders. 
 Mrs. Cornelia K. Hood, in her report of the 
 King's County Suffrage work for 1895, says: 
 " A circular letter was addressed to all the clergy- 
 men known to be friends, asking them that a 
 sermon might be preached by them in favor of 
 woman suffrage. This request met with a liberal 
 response, and many able addresses were made on
 
 WOMAN SUFFRAGE AND THE CHURCH. 259 
 
 the Sunday morning set for that purpose." In 
 her report of the Suffrage campaign in New York 
 city in the winter of 1895-96, Dr. Jacobi says, 
 speaking of the parlor meetings : " Several prom- 
 inent clergymen joined us Mr. Rainsford, the 
 Rev. Arthur Brooks, Mr. Percy Grant, Mr. Eaton, 
 Mr. Leighton "Williams." In referring to the last 
 regular meeting of the County Suffrage Associa- 
 tion held that winter in Cooper Union, she says : 
 " The meeting was addressed by Samuel Gompers, 
 President of the Federation of Labor, by Dr. 
 Peters, an Episcopal clergyman, by Father Ducey } 
 the Catholic priest, Dr. Saunders, a Baptist 
 minister, and Henry George, the advocate of 
 single tax." In her address before the Constitu- 
 tional Convention, she said : " The Church, 
 which fifty years ago was a unit in denouncing 
 the public work of woman even for the slave 
 is now divided in its councils." The church 
 never was a unit in denouncing the public work 
 of woman, and much of her noblest public work 
 has been done under its auspices. The behavior 
 of Suffrage women in slavery times caused 
 scandal to church and state. The right of private 
 judgment, claimed alwa} r s by Protestant Chris- 
 tianity, has divided the clergy on all questions ; 
 and " a clergyman, a priest, and a minister " were 
 as free to believe, and to speak what they believed, 
 on suffrage, as were Samuel Gompers, who lately 
 offended the Labor organization by inviting two 
 anarchists to address it, and Henry George, whose
 
 260 WOMAN AND THE REPUBLIC. 
 
 single-tax theories have lately turned law and 
 order upside down in Delaware. 
 
 " Interpret the Bible anew from her own stand- 
 point." The volume in which a beginning has 
 been made in this work is a thick pamphlet bear- 
 ing a motto from Cousin on one cover, and the 
 picture of a piano as an advertisement on the 
 other. It is with a profound sense of sadness and 
 disgust that any woman who honors God and loves 
 her own sex turns its pages. Behold the first 
 dilemma in which the commentators find them- 
 selves involved. Mrs. Stanton opens the com- 
 ments on the Creation as follows : " In the great 
 work of the creation, the crowning glory was 
 realized when man and woman were evolved on 
 the sixth day, the masculine and feminine forces 
 in the image of God, that must have existed 
 eternally, in all forms of matter and mind. . . . 
 How then is it possible to make woman an after- 
 thought? . . . All those theories based on the 
 assumption that man was prior in the creation, 
 have no foundation in Scripture. As to woman's 
 subjection, on which both the canon and civil law 
 delight to dwell, it is important to note that 
 equal dominion is given to woman over every 
 living thing, but not a word is said giving man 
 dominion over woman. No lesson of woman's 
 subjection can be fairly drawn from the first 
 chapter of the Old Testament." 
 
 In commenting on the second account of the 
 Creation, Ellen Battelle Dietrick says : " It is
 
 WOMAN SUFFRAGE AND THE CHURCH. 261 
 
 now generally conceded that some one (nobody 
 pretends to know who) at some time (nobody 
 pretends to know exactly when) copied two 
 creation myths on the same leather roll, one im- 
 mediately following the other. Modern theolo- 
 gians have, for convenience sake, entitled these 
 two fables, respectively, the Elohistic and the 
 Jahoistic stories. They differ not only in the 
 point I have mentioned above, but in the order of 
 the ' creative acts,' in regard to the mutual atti- 
 tude of man and woman, and in regard to human 
 freedom from prohibitions imposed by deity. 
 Now, it is manifest that both of these stories 
 cannot be true; intelligent women who feel 
 bound to give the preference to either, may 
 decide according to their own judgment which is 
 more worthy of an intelligent woman's accept- 
 ance. My own opinion is, that the second story 
 was manipulated by some wily Jew, in an en- 
 deavor to give * heavenly authority ' for requiring 
 a woman to obey the man she married." Lillie 
 Devereux Blake takes still another horn of the 
 dilemma. She says : " In the detailed descrip- 
 tion of creation we find a gradually ascending 
 series. ' Creeping things,' ' great sea-monsters,' 
 every bird of wing,' * cattle and living things of 
 the earth,' the * fish of the sea and the birds of 
 the heavens ; ' then man, and, last and crowning 
 glory of the whole, woman. It cannot be main- 
 tained that woman was inferior to man, even if, 
 as asserted in chapter ii., she was created after
 
 262 WOMAN AND THE REPUBLIC. 
 
 him, without at once admitting that man is 
 inferior to the creeping things because created 
 after them." 
 
 These commentators, on the whole, agree that 
 the- first account of creation does not teach 
 woman's subjection to man ; that, although " some 
 wily Jew" inserted the second account in an 
 endeavor to give " heavenly authority for requir- 
 ing a woman to obey the man she married," he 
 has been outwitted after all, for the ascending 
 series of creation really teaches the same lesson as 
 the first account, and from it woman's inferiority 
 cannot be maintained. And yet it would seem 
 that she must be an " afterthought " if she is to 
 be superior. 
 
 Mrs. Stanton, in summing up the concensus of 
 opinion on a matter which is not of the slightest 
 importance to any of them, except that they feel 
 an interest, for the cause of Suffrage, in endeavor- 
 ing to release woman from the long bondage of 
 superstition, says : " The first account dignifies 
 woman as an important factor in the creation, 
 equal in power and glory with man. The second 
 makes her a mere afterthought. The world in 
 good running order without her, the only reason 
 for her advent being the solitude of man. There 
 is something sublime in bringing order out of 
 chaos ; light out of darkness ; giving each planet 
 its place in the solar system; oceans and lands 
 their limits, wholly inconsistent with a petty 
 surgical operation to find material for the mother
 
 WOMAN SUFFRAGE AND THE CHURCH. 263 
 
 of the race. It is in this allegory that all the 
 enemies of woman rest their battering-rams, to 
 prove her inferiority. Accepting the view that 
 man was prior in the creation, some Scriptural 
 writers say that, as the woman was of the man, 
 therefore her position should be one of subjection. 
 Grant it. Then, as the historical fact is reversed 
 in our day, and the man is now of the woman, 
 shall his place be one of subjection ? The equal 
 position declared in the first account must prove 
 more satisfactory to both sexes ; created alike in 
 the image of God the heavenly Mother and 
 Father. Thus, the Old Testament, ' in the begin- 
 ning,' proclaims the simultaneous creation of man 
 and woman, the eternity and equality of sex ; 
 and the New Testament echoes back through the 
 centuries the individual sovereignty of woman 
 growing out of this natural fact. Paul, in speak- 
 ing of equality as the very soul and essence of 
 Christianity, said, ' There is neither Jew nor 
 Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is 
 neither male nor female ; for ye are all one in 
 Christ Jesus. With this recognition of the fem- 
 inine element in the Godhead in the Old Testa- 
 ment, and this declaration of the equality of the 
 sexes in the New, we may well wonder at the 
 contemptible status woman occupies in the Chris- 
 tian Church to-day." 
 
 So the woman who spurns the Bible as the 
 book that is responsible for woman's degradation, 
 who denies that it is the word of God, who pours
 
 264 WOMAN AND THE REPUBLIC. 
 
 out upon Paul the vials of her wrath, finds in 
 them both her highest warrant for believing in 
 the " equal position " of woman, " the perfect 
 equality of the sexes." "When the wrath of woman 
 thus praises God, the one who believes that 
 through woman's status in the Bible and in the 
 Christian Church this perfect equality is being 
 worked out day by day need not take up con- 
 troversial cudgels. Ribaldry in woman seems 
 more gross than in man, and this is woman's 
 ribaldry. It is profane to speak of the " feminine 
 element in the Godhead." God is a spirit. There 
 is no more a feminine than a masculine element 
 in the Godhead. Sex belongs to mortal life and 
 its conditions. It begins and ends with this earth. 
 Christ has told us so : There will be in another 
 world " no marrying, nor giving in marriage, but 
 we all shall be as the angels in heaven." The 
 equality of which Paul spoke as " the very soul 
 and essence of Christianity " is the equality of the 
 essence and soul of male and female humanity, 
 and the oneness of the believer's soul with that 
 of the 'Christ in whom his soul believes. The 
 soul of humanity, as well as its body, is bound 
 by sex conditions as long as it draws the breath 
 of this transitory life. Every thought and every 
 act reveal the governing power of the sex mould 
 in which its form is cast for this world's uses. 
 The use of this world is to give preparation for 
 another and a better one ; final spiritual triumph 
 is the end to be attained. Humanity is now in
 
 WOMAN SUFFRAGE AND THE CI1URCH. 265 
 
 the image of God only in the essential sense in 
 which the full corn in the ear may be said to be 
 wrapped up in its kernel, and it can unfold only 
 according to the laws of its being. The first ac- 
 count of Creation sets forth, with the beautiful 
 imagery of the Orient, the general and ultimate 
 truth. The second account, with the same grand 
 simplicity, foreshadows the method and the long, 
 slow process by which this ultimate end is to be 
 attained. 
 
 In continuing their comments, the editors say : 
 "In chapter v., verse 23, Adam proclaims the 
 eternal oneness of the happy pair, ' This is now 
 bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh ; ' no hint 
 of her subordination. How could men, admitting 
 these words to be divine revelation, ever have 
 preached the subjection of woman ? Next comes 
 the naming of the mother of the race. ' She shall 
 be called woman,' in the ancient form of the 
 word, ' womb-man.' She was man and more than 
 man, because of her maternity. The assertion of 
 the supremacy of the woman in the marriage re- 
 lation is contained in chapter v., 24 : ' Therefore 
 shall a man leave his father and his mother and 
 cleave unto his wife.' Nothing is said of the 
 headship of man, but he is commanded to make her 
 the head of the household, the home, a rule fol- 
 lowed for centuries under the Matriarchate." 
 
 A rule that has been followed rudely through 
 all centuries, and is followed to-day with far 
 greater approach to perfect obedience. Mater-
 
 266 WOMAN AND THE REPUBLIC. 
 
 nity was to be God's method of working out 
 the problem of changing the innocence of igno- 
 rant savagery to the holiness of enlightened civil- 
 ization. To this end, the more delicate and com- 
 plex organism of the womb-man must be cared 
 for by the strength and steadiness that could find 
 full play because that subtler task was not demand- 
 ed of it. 
 
 In commenting on chapter iii., which contains 
 the account of the Garden of Eden and the eating 
 of the apple, they say : " As out of this allegory 
 grow the doctrines of original sin, the fall of man 
 and of woman the author of all our woes, and the 
 curses on the serpent, the woman and the man, 
 the Darwinian theory of the gradual growth of 
 the race from a lower to a higher type of animal 
 life is more hopeful and encouraging." 
 
 The Christian doctrine is more hopeful and en- 
 couraging still. It reveals the growth of the race 
 from a low type of animal life to the perfect life 
 of the soul. 
 
 We do not need to go back to the garden where 
 our first parents dwelt, to look for the substan- 
 tiation of the eternal truth of this whole wondrous 
 story. Amid the landscape of the civilization of 
 the noblest country that the world possesses, we 
 have the drama repeated. In the work of Anne 
 Hutchinson, Ann Lee, Frances "Wright, Lucretia 
 Mott, Elizabeth Stanton, Susan Anthony, Ellen 
 Dietrick, Lillie Blake, and their fellow-commen- 
 tators, we have re-enacted the Temptress and the
 
 WOMAN SUFFRAGE AND THE CHURCH. 267 
 
 Fall. "Woman first aspired. She stretched forth 
 her eager hand to seize the good, and in so doing 
 snatched the evil that grew beside it. The woman 
 in Eden had not learned what maternity taught 
 her later that she could point the path, but could 
 not lead in entering it. Wherever woman has 
 forgotten this hard-won but glorious lesson, she 
 has been the most dangerous of guides. The 
 conscience, that intellect of the soul, woke first 
 in woman. By her obedience to its voice, the 
 faith that worketh by love had its perfected 
 work, and the promise that was given to her was 
 fulfilled in the birth of Christ. A Creation story 
 without a gospel is chaos without gravitation, 
 primal darkness without the sun. Forward to 
 divinity in human form woman was able, through 
 obedience, to point mankind. Backward to di- 
 vinity in human form she points again, until 
 humanity itself shall become divine. If she loses 
 the final vision, or substitutes her own, she can 
 neither point nor guide. No wonder woman has 
 been a mystery to the church. No wonder a witch 
 was not allowed to live, while a wizard might ; 
 she was more dangerous. No wonder Paul was 
 perplexed by the woman question. No wonder 
 monks fled to the desert. Christ has spoken the 
 final words of woman, " Thy faith hath saved 
 thee." From the anguish of His cross he said : 
 " Woman, behold thy son ! " " Behold thy mother," 
 and the beloved disciple " took her to his own 
 home from that hour."
 
 268 WOMAN AND THE REPUBLIC. 
 
 In the Suffrage appeal of 1860, the writers said : 
 "The difference between husband and wife is as vast 
 as the difference between Christ and his Church." 
 Christ himself says that the difference between 
 him and his Church is that of degree, not of 
 kind, and that the resemblance is that of essential 
 oneness. He says : " I am the vine, ye are the 
 branches." Could union be more completely pic- 
 tured ? The fruit-bearing branch cannot say to 
 the strength-giving vine, " I have no need of thee." 
 The vine cannot say, " I have no need of thee." 
 Man in his imperious folly has pictured the rela- 
 tionship as that of oak and vine which have no 
 organic union ; but, despite imperiousness and folly, 
 both men and women, through mutual obedience 
 to God, have thus far worked out, and are still 
 working out, the nobler destiny for both. 
 
 In summing up their opinion of the Pentateuch, 
 the editors of the Suffrage Woman's Bible say : 
 " This utter contempt for all the decencies of life, 
 and all the natural personal rights of women, as 
 set forth in these pages, should destroy, in the 
 minds of women at least, all authority to super- 
 human origin, and stamp the Pentateuch at least 
 as emanating from the most obscene minds of a 
 barbarous age." So low can woman fall in igno- 
 rance and shameless audacity when the faith that 
 works by love is lost. As the spirit of the Com- 
 mandments comes to prevail, the decencies of life 
 and the natural personal rights of woman become 
 more secure. Here again Christ has spoken the
 
 WOMAN SUFFRAGE AND THE CHURCH. 269 
 
 ultimate word. He says : " Ye have heard by 
 them of old time ' Thou shalt not commit adultery,' 
 but I say unto you whosoever looketh on a woman 
 to lust after her hath committed adultery with 
 her already in his heart." This is the standard of 
 chastity to which mankind must come. When 
 the Hebrew mother in living faith cast the bread 
 of her own life's being upon the Nile, she was to 
 find it after many days in the great law-giver of 
 her people. The Commandments received through 
 him were the foreshadowing of those greater 
 oracles in which Christ summed up the whole 
 duty of man. The individual liberty which 
 Moses was the first to proclaim to a whole people, 
 in the Pentateuch, Christ, his anti-type, proclaimed 
 to a whole world, and on his proclamation rests 
 to-day the freedom of woman and of the Ameri- 
 can Republic. The Bread of Life, again cast on 
 the troubled waters of this world, by Avoman's 
 faith, through Mary the Virgin Mother, is return- 
 ing after many days. 
 
 Strange that we should forever turn back, as if 
 the application of any essential truth were finished. 
 The child walks by faith. The childhood of the 
 world walked by faith, and left in the Bible the 
 evidence of things that are not seen but are eter- 
 nal. The Suffrage movement has a quarrel with 
 the Bible because the Creator is there represented, 
 for the reverence of the race, under the guise of a 
 Heavenly Father, and not a Heavenly Mother, or 
 rather, not as a human pair, equal in dignity and
 
 270 WOMAN AND THE REPUBLIC. 
 
 power. If the first impulsion of love toward God 
 had come into this world through the mind of 
 man, he would have represented the divine love 
 that his soul conceived under the guise of that 
 being on earth whom he most loved. But love 
 was born with the " disabilities " of woman ; it 
 was evolved through motherhood ; and the same 
 impulse that gave it, exalted, not itself, but what 
 it loved and trusted. " I have gotten a man from 
 the Lord" said the first recorded mother, who 
 had learned to know the Lord through mother- 
 hood ; and the boy she bore was taught to look 
 up with confidence to the strength and protection 
 of his father. She told him that the pity of his 
 father, which made him bring food and raiment, 
 and which guarded his home, was an image of the 
 feeling that was felt for him by the divine being. 
 Could man have learned the lesson first, we can 
 see that the story would have been different, be- 
 cause man has named every beautiful and gracious 
 thing for woman. Virtue, temperance, truth, 
 purity, love, faith, hope, liberty, grace, beauty, 
 charity, the inspirers of art and science, of music 
 and literature, of justice and of religion, all are 
 feminine. When man says : " Our Father which 
 art in heaven," he prays as his mother taught him. 
 Through the self-abnegation that was unconscious 
 of its sacrifice, woman was to be the instrument 
 for bringing human life up, on, to the God who, 
 being spirit, could act upon a clay-bound mind 
 only through the highest human thing that love
 
 WOMAN SUFFRAGE AND THE CHURCH. 271 
 
 could know. Men, as well as women, have mis- 
 understood and misinterpreted this. The love 
 that " is not puffed up," " doth not behave itself 
 unseemly," cannot proclaim its own virtue to ar- 
 rogate it is to lose it. But the secret of the Lord 
 has been with those who feared Him, and it has 
 led the world aright in spite of blunder and of sin. 
 If man, in his ignorant conceit, has fancied that 
 this was the subjection of woman, it has been a 
 part of his mother's lesson to correct that impres- 
 sion. If woman, in her folly, has allowed herself 
 to make the same mistake, that, too, is working 
 out its cure through the love that so arranged 
 human nature that " a man should leave father 
 and mother and cleave unto his wife, and they 
 twain should be one flesh," and that " her desire 
 should be to her husband " in those matters where- 
 in the mutual interest required that he should 
 bear sway. If there is a minister of religion who 
 holds to the perverted notion that, because woman 
 ate the original apple in disobedience to God's 
 command, she was the bringer of original sin into 
 the world, and for that was and is punished by 
 arbitrary subjection to the authority of man, that 
 minister does not deserve the support of women. 
 The fact that he would have few listeners, and 
 fewer followers, if women were not the bringers 
 and the maintainers of religious faith is sufficient 
 proof against such an exposition of scripture. As 
 a matter of fact, while the dogmatism of belief, 
 like the dogmatism of unbelief, has made asser-
 
 272 WOMAN AND THE REPUBLIC. 
 
 tions that have dishonored both divine and human 
 nature, the practical working of formulated faiths 
 of all names has been to approach the standard 
 laid down in the Old and the New Testament. 
 The model of being set by Christ is that of a little 
 child. " Except ye become as little children, ye 
 shall in no wise enter the kingdom of heaven." 
 The natural characteristics of the child are faith, 
 and hope, and love the virtues that abide. When 
 the virile apostle to the Gentiles " put away 
 childish things," he kept these childlike qualities. 
 If woman first attains them in perfection, she is 
 superior ; if man, he is superior. In the race to- 
 ward the final goal, to be equal in accomplishment 
 it is needful to be equal in obedience. The key- 
 note of Paul's preaching was obedience the obe- 
 dience of all human beings to God in Christ, the 
 obedience of all men and women to lawful civil 
 authority for the sake of Christ and the promo- 
 tion of his kingdom, the obedience of men to one 
 another in the churchly offices, for the sake of 
 that " decency " that he loved and enjoined the 
 obedience of the equal wife to the husband who 
 was the external representative of family life. 
 
 With Eastern nations the veil was the sign of 
 retirement, of domestic life, and it was assumed 
 by wives when they were in the street or in a 
 public assembly. In heathen and barbarous 
 countries it was also deemed a sign of woman's 
 subjection and inferiority. The Hebrews were 
 the first people to attain any truly spiritual con-
 
 WOMAN SUFFRAGE AND THE CHURCH. 273 
 
 ceptions, and they began to have a commensu- 
 rately higher idea of the possibilities of woman's 
 nature and work. "When Christian women, in 
 their new-found freedom, would have thrown 
 aside the veil, just as Christian men, in their new- 
 found reverence for God, would have repudiated 
 the heathen wife, Paul said to them both that 
 Christian liberty was individual, it changed the 
 character, not the sex relations. In arranging for 
 church discipline, he advised that men should un- 
 cover the head, and women should Avear the veil. 
 But he said, in reference to that veil, that " woman 
 should have power on her head, because of the 
 angels." The angels are spoken of in the ]S~ew 
 Testament as veiling their faces in the very pres- 
 ence of the Creator. In that truer symbolism of 
 Christianity, man was to uncover his head in token 
 of reverence to God and acceptance of the respon- 
 sibility of the guardianship of the earth. Woman 
 was to cover her head in token of her acceptance 
 of man's guardianship and of her dominion over 
 his heart, to which she had revealed God's will. 
 
 Paul adds : " For as the woman is of the man, 
 so is the man also of the woman ; but all things 
 are of God." This relation was one of the mys- 
 teries that Paul said he did not comprehend, nor 
 could he, till the lessons he taught should work 
 out their results, and might serve as commen- 
 tary. 
 
 Life itself, as well as all that life could come to 
 mean, depended upon woman's consenting. The 
 18
 
 274 WOMAN AND THE REPUBLIC. 
 
 word "obey" in some marriage services seems, 
 like what it really is, a survival. Obedience has 
 brought its reward, and the consent of the heart 
 is more than the consent of the lips. But if there 
 is no consent of the heart to wifehood and mother- 
 hood, in time there will be no chivalry, no prog- 
 ress, no final emancipation for the race. Con- 
 senting is also commanding, and woman loses her 
 life in order to find it in the fulfillment of her 
 wish. It was consent to her own teaching. 
 The chivalrous and tender-hearted Paul, who 
 spoke of women with reverent affection, who 
 adopted as his own the mother of Rufus, was re- 
 peating the lesson of every Jewish mother from 
 Sarah to Deborah, and from Deborah to the 
 women who were last at Christ's cross and first 
 beside his tomb. Deborah, who was the judge, 
 prophetess and poet, but first of all " a mother in 
 Israel," under whom her degenerate people had 
 peace for forty years, rebuked Barak and said, to 
 their humiliation : " This day shall the Lord de- 
 liver Israel by the hand of a woman." From this 
 teaching Paul uttered his rebuke to the wayward 
 church at Corinth : " It is a shame ior a man to 
 cover his head, inasmuch as he is the image and 
 glory of God ; but the woman is the glory of the 
 man." And he added, in speaking of the wear- 
 ing of the veil, " For this cause ought the woman 
 to have power " " because of the angels." In the 
 Epistle to the Ephesians Paul admonishes the 
 Church to be " imitators of God, as beloved chil-
 
 WOMAN SUFFRAGE AND THE CHURCH. 275 
 
 dren, and walk in love, even as Christ also loved 
 you, and gave himself for you, an offering and a 
 sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling savour." 
 Again, he says : " Therefore, as the Church is sub- 
 ject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own 
 husbands in everything." And as if to make 
 doubly certain that no one should think that such 
 submission implied bondage or inequality, he adds 
 " Husbands, love your wives even as Christ also 
 loved the Church and gave himself for it." Again, 
 he says : " So ought men to love their wives, as their 
 own bodies. . . . Even as the Lord the Church," 
 adding with almost strained Oriental vehemence, 
 " for we are members of his body, of his flesh and 
 of his bones. For this cause shall a man leave his 
 father and his mother, and shall be joined unto 
 his wife, and they twain shall be one flesh." 
 
 The comment most readily suggested is, that 
 through this teaching the use of the veil has now no 
 such significance. The uncovering of the head is a 
 token of respect, largely to woman. The reten- 
 tion of the bonnet is not dreamed of in connection 
 with woman's relation to man, nor does it suggest 
 woman's power in the moral world. The obedi- 
 ence through which love " constrained " a mind 
 that had been bred to forms, was free If any- 
 body now holds that woman was intended to 
 glorify God indirectly, through man, or to serve 
 God by serving man, he makes an assumption 
 long discredited, and not in accord with the spirit 
 of Christ and of Paul. Man is as much the glory
 
 276 WOMAN AND THE REPUBLIC. 
 
 of woman as woman is the glory of man, and they 
 reveal equally the glory of God. 
 
 In speaking of the proprieties of life, Paul said : 
 " Does not nature herself teach you ? " " If a 
 man have long hair, it is a shame to him." " If a 
 woman have long hair, it is a glory to her." The 
 badge of womanhood is a glory, and the " short- 
 haired women and long-haired men " of the early 
 Suffrage movement transformed the symbols of 
 dignity and honor into those of contempt and dis- 
 grace. 
 
 Canon law grew up during the Middle Ages, 
 when came the great 
 
 " Death-grapple in the darkness, 'twixt old systems and the 
 Word." 
 
 The wondrous church that rose on the ruins of 
 Roman militarism, and overthrew Norman feud- 
 alism, gave evidence, in its code, of the bitterness 
 of the conflict and the rudeness of the time. The 
 legal fiction that, in acknowledging the oneness 
 of husband and wife, yet made the husband that 
 one, was a perversion of Scripture. 
 
 It has been publicly said by Suffragists from, 
 the first, that the tenets of the Church of Rome, 
 in which Canon law had its origin, were inimical 
 to woman suffrage ; and they have further said 
 that those who canonize women and worship the 
 Virgin Mother, should naturally have been friendly 
 to the Suffrage idea. I suppose no one will 
 deny that the spirit of the Roman body is that of
 
 WOMAN SUFFRAGE AND THE CHURCH. 277 
 
 a state church. I have no more to say in criti- 
 cism of it as a Christian denomination than I have 
 of others ; but that organization which has held 
 temporal and spiritual power to be co-ordinate 
 and interdependent in government, presents a 
 political phase that has direct bearing on my 
 theme, and I make my few comments as a histo- 
 rian. The Church that inculcates Mariolatry 
 would have far more ignorant women to add to 
 our body of voters than any other. It has done 
 less for woman's education and general advance- 
 ment than any other, but its claims are not there- 
 fore modest. The school elections in Staten Island 
 last year gave an object-lesson in regard to its in- 
 tention to use the suffrage. In Connecticut, the 
 school election presented another evidence of the 
 intense interest felt by the Catholic clergy in pub- 
 lic-school matters. In California, in the late can- 
 vass for woman suffrage, that Church assisted 
 largely in carrying on the work to secure the 
 amendment. While many of its individual mem- 
 bers are among the noblest friends that civil and 
 religious freedom have in our country, this church, 
 by its traditions, and by its latest pronunciamentos, 
 shows itself as a force that, for its own selfish 
 reasons, may be reckoned on the side of woman 
 suffrage in its conflict with woman's progress.
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 WOMAN SUFFRAGE AND SEX. 
 
 THE ninth count of the Suffrage Declaration 
 says : " He has created a false sentiment by 
 giving to the world a different code of morals for 
 men and women, by which moral delinquencies 
 which exclude woman from society, are not only 
 tolerated, but deemed of little account in men." 
 And the list of grievances is summed up as 
 follows : " Because women do feel themselves 
 aggrieved, oppressed and fraudulently deprived of 
 their most sacred rights, we insist that they have 
 immediate admission to all the rights and privi- 
 leges which belong to them as citizens of the 
 United States." 
 
 The writers do not say whether the code of 
 morals referred to is a code of law or an un- 
 written code of public sentiment. If they mean 
 the former, their statement is not true ; for what- 
 ever laws affect moral delinquencies visit their 
 penalties equally upon men and women. If they 
 mean public sentiment alone, the answer is, that 
 both men and women are responsible for its 
 
 creation. It is folly to deny that there is, in 
 278
 
 WOMAN SUFFRAGE AND SEX. 279 
 
 the nature of things, more excuse for men than 
 for women. A mother realizes that her son has a 
 natural temptation of which her daughter knows 
 nothing. But this fact, while it accounts in part 
 for the different standard, by no means exoner- 
 ates man. One of the strangest anomalies of 
 human experience exists in connection with this 
 matter. Man reposes his deepest faith in the 
 existence of goodness at its vital point, in the 
 virtue of woman ; and yet when he tramples upon 
 that virtue he screens himself behind the excuse 
 that her nature is as vulnerable as his own, while 
 his temptation is greater. The main reason, as it 
 seems to me, why women often appear more 
 cruel to their fallen sisters than do men, lies in 
 the fact that pure women abhor this vice as they 
 abhor no other. Besides bestowing upon woman 
 a loftier moral sense, her Creator has hedged 
 about her virtue with a feeling of physical repul- 
 sion that is distinct from the moral question in- 
 volved. The social life of the world is to a large 
 extent in woman's hands. "When she says to 
 men " You cannot bring your impurity into my 
 home," "You must be the ones to guard our 
 sons and daughters," the reform will be begun in 
 earnest. Woman's faith, and her abstract way of 
 looking at moral questions, prevent her from fast- 
 ening her thought, as men naturally do, on any 
 special culprit, in her severe but vague sense of 
 wrong in this matter. The Suffragists have taken 
 fewer steps in the direction of removing the social
 
 280 WOMAN AND THE REPUBLIC. 
 
 plague-spot than in the direction of bringing 
 about a system of easier divorce a thing that 
 strikes a blow directly against, instead of for, the 
 virtue of their sex. Social opinion is causing a 
 change in some of the laws concerning social vice. 
 Nearly every State legislature has raised the 
 age of consent. So far as Suffrage associations 
 have assisted in this, it proves their ability and 
 their good will ; but much more is due to our edu- 
 cated physicians and philanthropists. 
 
 It seems at first thought as if there were no 
 direct connection between voting and social ques- 
 tions of sex ; but I am following the lead of my 
 Suffrage texts. Others who attempt the discus- 
 sion are led to the same themes. Dr. Jacobi, in 
 her book, says : " The problem is, to show why, 
 in a representative system based on the double 
 principle that all the intelligence in the state shall 
 be enlisted for its welfare, and all the weak- 
 ness in the state represented for its own defence, 
 women, being often intelligent, and often weak, 
 and ahvays persons in the community, should not 
 also be represented." In replying to the anti- 
 suffrage arguments of Prof. Goldwin Smith, she 
 says : " Do sex relations depend upon acts of 
 Parliament or constitutional amendments ? Can 
 women marry a ballot, or embrace the franchise, 
 otherwise than by a questionable figure of speech ? 
 Must adultery and infanticide necessarily be 
 favored by the decisions of female jurors? Is 
 divorce legislation, as arranged by the exclusive
 
 WOMAN SUFFBAGE AND SEX. 281 
 
 wisdom of men, now so satisfactory that women 
 who must perforce be involved in every case 
 should always modestly refrain from attempting 
 amendment ? This entire class of considerations, 
 however irrelevant to the issue, may be grouped 
 together and considered together, because, to a 
 large class of minds the rudest, quite as much as 
 those of Mr. Smith's cultivation they are the 
 considerations that do come to the front when- 
 ever equal rights are suggested." She adds that 
 the reason they come to the front is, " that men, 
 accustomed to think of men as possessing sex 
 attributes and other things besides, are accus- 
 tomed to think of women as having sex and noth- 
 ing else." 
 
 Is there a ruder mind anywhere than one that 
 could not only think but write a sentiment so 
 revolting and so false ? And yet the statement 
 admits that, whatever the reason, the sex issue 
 does underlie the whole Suffrage question. 
 
 In their "History," the leaders not only set 
 forth all the specific charges in their Declaration 
 of Sentiments, but of this " rebellion such as the 
 world has never seen " they say : " Men saw that 
 with political equality for woman, she could no 
 longer be kept in social subjection. The fear of a 
 social revolution thus complicated the discussion." 
 
 In the Introduction to the Suffrage Woman's 
 Bible, the commentators say : " How can woman's 
 position be changed from that of a subordinate 
 to an equal, without opposition ? without the
 
 282 WOMAN AND THE REPUBLIC. 
 
 broadest discussion of all the questions involved 
 in her present degradation ? For so far-reaching 
 and momentous a reform as her complete inde- 
 pendence, an entire revolution in all existing in- 
 stitutions is inevitable." 
 
 Dr. Jacobi says : " To-day, when all men rule, 
 and diffused self-government has abolished the 
 old divisions between the governing classes and 
 the governed, only one class remains over whom 
 all men can exercise sovereignty namely, the 
 women. Hence a shuddering dread runs through 
 society at the proposal to also abolish this last 
 refuge of facile domination." 
 
 Here, then, all these Suffragists present a prob- 
 lem far more momentous than appears when it 
 ~is proposed "to show why, in a representative 
 system based on the double principle that all the 
 intelligence in the state shall be enlisted for its 
 welfare, and all the weakness in the state repre- 
 sented for its defence, women, being often intelli- 
 gent, and often weak, and always persons, should 
 not also be represented." It is the sex battle that 
 has been waged from the beginning. In the 
 Suffrage "Woman's Bible Mrs. Stanton says : 
 " The correction of this [the misinterpretation of 
 the Bible as concerns woman] will restore her, 
 and deprive her enemy, man, of a reason for his 
 oppression and a weapon of attack." Disguise it 
 as they may, to themselves and to others, the 
 Suffrage idea is compelled to claim that man is 
 woman's enemy, that the ballot is the engine of
 
 WOMAN SUFFRAGE AND SEX. 283 
 
 his power, and that therefore she must vote. The 
 reason that " these considerations come to the 
 front whenever equal rights is mentioned " is be- 
 cause the women of that movement brought them 
 there, and keep them there, and because no one 
 can seriously consider the matter without seeing 
 that they belong there. 
 
 In discussing them, Dr. Jacobi says : " "What is 
 imagined, claimed, and very seriously demanded, 
 is, that women be recognized as human beings, 
 with a range of faculties and activities co-exten- 
 sive with that of men, whatever may be the dif- 
 ference in the powers within that range." 
 
 In another place she admits that " women are 
 really recognized as individuals, the same as men," 
 and the fact that they are so recognized is made 
 the basis of an argument for their voting. Sup- 
 pose men demanded that they be given a " range 
 of faculties and activities co-extensive with that 
 of women, whatever may be the difference in the 
 powers within that range," if they demanded it 
 " seriously " they would probably become laugh- 
 ing-stocks. 
 
 She says : " The sex relations of women as lovers, 
 as wives, as mothers, as daughters, remain un- 
 touched, certainly unimpaired, by the demand to 
 extend beyond these. What is impaired is not 
 the sex relation, nor sex condition, but- the social 
 disabilities, the personal and social subordination, 
 the condition of political non-existence, which 
 have been foisted upon that sex condition."
 
 284 WOMAN AND THE REPUBLIC. 
 
 The repeated demand to " extend beyond " the 
 sex relations of either sex is a demand to touch 
 those relations, and whether it is a demand to 
 impair them depends upon the question whether 
 it is true that disabilities and subordination have 
 been foisted upon the sex conditions. In olden 
 times they were. Men were subject to social dis- 
 abilities, personal and social subordination, and 
 political non-existence. It followed that women 
 were also in the same subjection. As men threw 
 off the yoke, the sex relations began to assume 
 their natural position. Man was the protector, 
 woman the protected. In the natural relations, 
 the protector is at the service of the protected, 
 and that is the state of things to-day. In order 
 to be preserved in bodily, mental, and spiritual 
 freedom, woman must yield with grace to the 
 hand that serves her. In order to protect, man 
 must see to it that this freedom he has won is 
 kept sacred and inviolable. He cannot be at once 
 a tyrant and a guard. This freedom removes 
 from woman all disabilities save those of sex. 
 The question then is, can all the intelligence and 
 all the weakness of women be represented for 
 their own welfare and their own defence, by the 
 same methods as those by which men attain that 
 end, and yet leave these fundamental sex relations 
 untouched and unimpaired ? 
 
 The Suffrage leaders did not expect or intend 
 to leave them untouched, or unimpaired, if com- 
 plete change was^impairment In the " History "
 
 WOMAN SUFFRAGE AND SEX. 285 
 
 they say : " It is often asked if political equality 
 would not arouse antagonism between the sexes ? 
 If it could be proved that men and women had 
 been harmonious in all ages and countries, and 
 that women were happy and satisfied in their 
 slavery, we might hesitate in proposing any 
 change whatever ; but the apathy, the helpless, 
 hopeless resignation of a subject class, cannot be 
 called happiness. A woman growing up under 
 American ideas of liberty in government and 
 religion cannot brook any disability based on sex 
 alone, without a deep feeling of antagonism with 
 the power that creates it." 
 
 Dr. Jacobi says : " Manhood Suffrage in America 
 may seem to result, historically, from the general 
 average equality of social conditions among the 
 inhabitants of the Thirteen States. But it may 
 also be deduced as a philosophical necessity from 
 the Idea of Individualism, which became the core 
 of the Federal Union. This idea, at first suggested 
 only for men, has, little by little, spread to 
 women also." 
 
 Individualism, in the sense of personal moral 
 responsibility, became the core, first of the 
 Hebrew Theocracy, and last of the American 
 National life. But that republicanism which has 
 come to rest on sex distinction is the combined re- 
 sult of Individualism and Authority. Suffrage 
 discussion for years has turned upon the idea of 
 Individualism versus Authority. 
 
 In a government like ours, where all the intelli-
 
 286 WOMAN AND THE REPUBLIC. 
 
 gence and all the weakness are represented for their 
 own welfare and defence, authority must to a cer- 
 tain extent hold a stern hand over individualism, 
 because freedom for all means license for not a 
 single one, be it man or woman. Mrs. Fanny 
 Ames says : " Any argument [against Suffrage] 
 worth anything at all, comes down to this an 
 argument against American democracy and 
 must rest there." Many arguments have been 
 adduced against Woman Suffrage that were also 
 arguments against democracy ; because there are 
 always people, and wise people too, who fear the 
 test of the ultimate experiment. To this fear 
 the Suffragists catered when, in contradiction to 
 their own dictum of universal suffrage, they asked 
 Congress for a sixteenth amendment that should 
 require an educational qualification for all, both 
 men and women. But, guided by the statesman- 
 ship that seeks to form a true and enduring democ- 
 racy, this Republic has come to the sex basis. 
 
 Dr. Jacobi says : " The complex contradictions 
 in the present distributions of sovereign power 
 are further intensified by the vulgarization of the 
 general ideal. It is one thing to say, * Some men 
 shall rule,' quite another to declare, 'All men 
 shall rule,' and that in virtue of the most primitive 
 and rudimentary attribute they possess, that, 
 namely, of sex. If the original contempt for 
 masses of men has ever diminished, and the con- 
 ception of mankind been ennobled, it is because, 
 upon the primitive animal foundation, human
 
 WOMAN SUFFRAGE AND SEX. 287 
 
 imagination has built a fair structure of mental 
 and moral attribute and possibility, and habitually 
 deals with that. This indeed is no new thing 
 to do ; for -it was to this moral man that Pericles 
 addressed his funeral oration, and of whom Lin- 
 coln thought in his speech at Gettysburg. Of 
 this moral man, women the sex hitherto so 
 despised are now recognized to constitute an 
 integral part. It is useless, therefore, to attempt 
 to throw them out by an appeal to the primitive 
 conditions of a physical force to which no one 
 appeals for any other purpose." 
 
 The immortal orator at Gettysburg was com- 
 mander-in-chief of an army and navy whose physi- 
 cal power was then in the very act of saving the 
 nation and redeeming it from the sin of slavery. 
 The soldier-statesman of Greece, in his funeral ora- 
 tion, was addressing an army. The fair structure 
 of mental and moral attribute and possibility has 
 not been built by human imagination. The con- 
 ception of the moral man that has ennobled man- 
 kind is older than any man who has embodied it. 
 It is as old as mankind itself, upon whose primi- 
 tive animal foundation God implanted side by 
 side the conception of the moral man, woman 
 and of the governing man, man. 
 
 That no inequality should be possible when 
 this idea should really rest upon the most primi- 
 tive, rudimentary and yet continuing and control- 
 ling attribute, instead of upon complex contra- 
 dictions in regard to the distribution of sovereign
 
 288 WOMAN AND THE REPUBLIC. 
 
 human power, God, speaking through the ideal 
 which the moral man had grasped, said : " There- 
 fore shall a man leave his father and his mother, 
 and shall cleave unto his wife, and they twain 
 shall be one flesh." 
 
 Man is not the hereditary sovereign in a republic. 
 He is an actual, present, continuing sovereign, and 
 he is that only so long as he obeys the law of his 
 being and constitutes himself, by reason of his 
 manhood strength, the defence of the republic's 
 laws for all. In woman suffrage democracy has 
 met a most dangerous foe. It has been asked 
 " If it would be best for man to make over half 
 his sovereignty to woman ? " I cannot imagine 
 how he could do this, whatever might be his wish. 
 Sovereignty in a republic is only divisible among 
 those who are equals as to sovereign power ; and 
 any effort to divide with those who lack the es- 
 sential attribute must result in despotism or an- 
 archy. Men are as subject to the restrictions and 
 requirements of sex as are women, and when they 
 try an experiment contrary to those conditions, 
 the end must be destruction of government itself. 
 
 Prof. Goldwin Smith says : " One of the feat- 
 ures of a revolutionary era is the prevalence of a 
 feeble facility of abdication. The holders of power, 
 however natural and legitimate it may be, are too 
 ready to resign it on the first demand. . . . The 
 nerves of authority are shaken by the failure of 
 conviction." 
 
 This is true, and it is what makes the present
 
 WOMAN SUFFRAGE AND SEX. 289 
 
 situation portentous. From the very tender- 
 heartedness of the men of our time comes the 
 danger to the women of this nation. So far from 
 desiring to hold the slightest restriction over the 
 women of the Republic, they may rush into an 
 attempt at abdication of a sovereignty that did 
 not originate in their will but in their environ- 
 ment, in order to prove the sincerity of their de- 
 sire that woman should not even appear to be 
 compelled to obey. 
 
 This movement is a feature of the revolutionary 
 era that seems suddenly to have extended to the 
 men with whose theories it belongs. Not at once, 
 nor everywhere equally, but finally and com- 
 pletely would this change come. Man, as well as 
 woman, must " consent to be governed " by the 
 laws of being. If man really could " share his 
 sovereignty," there might be some show of reason 
 in the Suffrage claim that he should do so. But 
 unless he can abdicate the very essentials of his 
 sex condition, he cannot abdicate his sovereignty. 
 His laws are dead letters whenever more men 
 than those who passed them and approve them 
 choose that they shall be dead. He would have 
 no material outside the men in this country, with 
 which to execute the wishes of the woman voters 
 whom it is proposed to introduce to make laws 
 which they know they cannot themselves enforce. 
 
 And this leads us right round again to consider 
 the "disabilities foisted upon sex conditions." 
 The first thing demanded of a voter is that, in the
 
 290 WOMAN AND THE REPUBLIC. 
 
 ordinary state of things, he should be able to vote. 
 A body of citizens is asking that a sex foe admitted 
 to franchise when it is known to all that a large 
 part of that sex would at every election find it phys- 
 ically impossible, or improper, to go to the polls. 
 Suffragists say : " No women need vote who do not 
 wish to ; but they have no right to hinder us." 
 Is this the Individualism of Democracy ? It is 
 the Individualism of Anarchy. It is not the rule 
 of the majority. It is class rule with a vengeance ; 
 and as for " consenting to be governed," there 
 never was a man or a government that so coolly 
 assumed to govern without their consent such a 
 body, as do the Suffragists. The disabilities 
 "foisted upon sex "would be felt first of all by 
 the wives and mothers who are most interested in 
 the laws. 
 
 The next duty of citizenship is jury service. The 
 leaders said : " We demand, in criminal cases, 
 that most sacred of all rights, trial by jury of our 
 own peers." In regard to jury duty Suffragists 
 are not agreed ; which fact alone shows that that 
 service would be felt to be an impairment of sex 
 conditions. So impossible has jury duty been 
 found, even in small communities, that in Wyom- 
 ing the jury service of women ceased with the 
 first judge who admitted them to serve at all; 
 and in Colorado but one or two women have ever 
 served. The judges there do not allow them to be 
 called. It was % found to be expensive, and not 
 promotive of the ends of justice. Whether this
 
 WOMAN SUFFRAGE AND SEX. 291 
 
 is held to be man's cruel withholding of woman's 
 rights or not, it shows that either the sex condi- 
 tion or the co-extensiveness of woman's work with 
 man's must be impaired. Dr. Jacobi says in re- 
 gard to jury service : " The numerous cases for 
 exemption now admitted for men would be cer- 
 tainly paralleled for women, but they would not 
 always be identical. Men are now more often 
 excused for business; women would be excused 
 on the plea of ill-health. Of course the special 
 plea of family cares with young children would 
 rule out thousands of women during a number of 
 years of their lives." 
 
 "Who would establish the "special plea" for 
 so large a proportion of the voting population ? 
 No law of justice on which a solid government 
 can rest could do it ; and that it would be asked, 
 and needed, shows that sex conditions would in- 
 terfere with voting conditions. A criminal case 
 often lasts weeks, even months, during which 
 time the jury are kept together and alone, locked 
 up at night, and walked out by day. This second 
 duty cannot be, and is not, performed ; not be- 
 cause many women would not make good jurors, 
 not because they should not try delicate cases, 
 and might not serve well at certain times, and in 
 special ways, but because jury duty, like military 
 service, cannot take account of sex conditions 
 when they are the rule and not the exception. 
 
 Office-holding is the next necessary concomi- 
 tant of the ballot. Of course it can be said at
 
 292 WOMAN AND T1IE REPUBLIC. 
 
 once : " Why, multitudes of men never hold 
 office, why should women ? " It may be an- 
 swered that multitudes of men do hold office, that 
 no American would think of extending the ballot 
 without expecting that, as an accompaniment, the 
 duty, or the privilege, of office-holding should 
 follow. 
 
 Not only is it true that if more than half the 
 population were added to the voting list multi- 
 tudes among them would attempt to rush into 
 office, but it was mainly for office that a majority 
 of those who have been pressing the demand cared 
 for the vote. The authors of the "History" 
 say : " As to offices, it is not be supposed that 
 the class of men now elected will resign to women 
 their chances, and, if they should to any extent, 
 the necessary number of women to fill the offices 
 would make no apparent change in our social 
 circles. If, for example, the Senate of the United 
 States should be entirely composed of women, but 
 two in each State would be withdrawn from the 
 pursuit of domestic happiness." 
 
 How could "the class of men now elected" 
 help resigning, if women enough chose to put up 
 a woman and give her a majority of votes, pro- 
 vided, as Suffragists say, that the vote secures the 
 office and retains it by a mere mandate ? But it 
 is not one office, or set of offices, which we have 
 to consider. It is the entrance upon political life, 
 permanently, of a large body of women. "What 
 that means to the social life that " would not
 
 WOMAN SUFFRAGE AND SEX. 293 
 
 miss them," we well know. There could be no 
 domestic ties ; no hindering child. The time 
 would be short before this unnatural position 
 would breed a race of Aspasias without the 
 intellect that ruled " the ruler of the land, when 
 Athens was the land of fame." 
 
 The " History " says : " An honest fear is 
 sometimes expressed * that women would degrade 
 politics, and politics would degrade women,' " and 
 the writers answer : " As the influence of woman 
 has been uniformly elevating in new civilizations, 
 in missionary work in heathen lands, in schools, 
 colleges, literature, and general society, it is fair 
 to suppose that politics would prove no excep- 
 tion." We do not need to depend upon fore- 
 cast or inference. The influence of women upon 
 politics, and the influence of politics upon women, 
 have already been degrading. This is true of 
 political intrigue in the old world, and of the 
 " Female Lobby " in "Washington. It is astonishing 
 to what an extent it is true in our new country, 
 with our fresh and sweet traditions. 
 
 In 1851, Mrs. Stanton, writing to a convention 
 at Akron, Ohio, said : " The great work before 
 us is the education of those just coming on the 
 stage of action. Begin with the girls of to-day, 
 and in twenty years we can revolutionize this 
 nation. Teach the girl to go alone by night and 
 day, if need be, on the lonely highway, or through 
 the busy streets of the crowded metropolis. Better 
 for her to suffer occasional insults, or die outright,
 
 294 WOMAN AND THE REPUBLIC. 
 
 than live the life of a coward, or never move 
 without a protector. . . . Teach her that it is no 
 part of life to cater to the prejudices of those 
 around her. Make her independent of public 
 sentiment, by showing her how worthless and 
 rotten a thing it is. ... Think you, women thus 
 educated would long remain the weak, dependent 
 beings we now find them? They would soon 
 settle for themselves this whole question of 
 Woman's Rights." 
 
 Fifty years of such teaching has had its effect. 
 The fine bloom has too often been brushed from 
 our girls' delicacy of thought. They can strut 
 through the street in the daytime wearing a shirt- 
 front, a cravat, a choker, a vest, and a man's hat, 
 and carrying a cane. A few can flaunt them- 
 selves in bloomers and knickerbockers, and ride 
 astride a bicycle. They ape men in everything 
 except courtesy to women. But the result is not 
 what was expected. These customs have intro- 
 duced the chaperone, and have put an end to 
 simple freedom between boys and girls. The 
 Puritan maiden in her modesty could let John 
 Alden speak for himself, because the John who 
 could summon courage to speak of love to such a 
 girl would not dare to breathe impurity. When 
 the young woman requires a social spy, the young 
 man is apt to forget that her innocent dignity is 
 her own best guardian. With the passing of the 
 " lady," American women may fail to remember 
 that a gentlewoman need pretend to no aristoc-
 
 WOMAN SUFFRAGE AND SEX. 295 
 
 racy but that of the noblesse oblige of her own 
 femininity. In the paragraph quoted above, 
 women are spoken of as those who are " uniformly 
 elevating " and as " weak and dependent " to a 
 contemptuous degree. They cannot be both at 
 once, and it seems to me that in fact they are 
 neither. Woman is not an angel nor a demon, 
 not a conqueror nor a slave. But the seed from 
 which any of these conflicting natures may de- 
 velop lies in more fertile soil, within her impas- 
 sioned and impressible soil, than in man's. The 
 Suffrage movement will leave her much better or 
 worse than it found her. The phrase " the new 
 woman," with the instinctive explanation that she 
 " is as refined, or as good a wife, mother, sister, 
 daughter, housekeeper," as the old, is ominous. 
 
 Suffrage writers seem to hold two views in 
 regard to sex. One is, that it is so pervasive that 
 it cannot be affected by any line of conduct. The 
 other is, that, so far as mind is concerned, it is 
 purely a fanciful barrier, and the less there 
 appears of external distinction the better will this 
 be realized. The Suffrage " History " says : " Sex 
 pervades all matter. Whatever it is, it requires 
 no special watchfulness on our part to see that it 
 is maintained." At the same time the dictum 
 " There is no sex in mind," has been a Suffrage 
 war-cry. It seems to me that both views are un- 
 scientific and dangerous to social morals. Sex in- 
 tegrity is pervasive of the whole nature only when 
 men and women are true to the ideal of the essen-
 
 296 WOMAN AND THE REPUBLIC. 
 
 tial distinctions in each. The true environment 
 of woman is womanliness ; not to fit her nature to 
 the utmost that womanliness can mean to the 
 world, is to fail of womanly attainment. But 
 making herself a distorted woman cannot make 
 her even an imperfect man. The mere act of go- 
 ing to the polls is not unwomanly ; it might be as 
 proper as going to the post-office ; but attempting 
 to encroach upon duty that is laid upon man 
 in her behalf is neither womanly nor manly. 
 
 In demanding equality, Suffragists assume 
 that there is not and has not been equality. In 
 asserting that " there is no sex in mind," they 
 really have had to maintain that there is one sex 
 in mind, and that the masculine, to which woman 
 must conform. If man wanted clinching argu- 
 ments to prove his superiority, could he find 
 another to match this one which suffrage has 
 furnished him ? The quaint wit of the Yankee 
 put it neatly when he gave the toast, " "Woman 
 once our superior, now our equal ! " Man has 
 said : " The hand that rocks the cradle rules the 
 world." lie has also said, with Martin : " What- 
 ever may be the customs and laws of a country, 
 the women of it decide the morals." The civiliza- 
 tion of no nation has risen higher than the carrying 
 out of the religious ideals of its best womanhood. 
 If man has the outward framing of church and 
 state, woman has the framing of the character of 
 man. There is no schism in the body of human 
 duties as the Lord established them. The issues
 
 WOMAN SUFFRAGE AND SEX. 297 
 
 have become more distinctly and openly moral 
 issues ; and in so far as woman can make it con- 
 sist with that inner life of the home and the child, 
 which alone can make the family and fix the 
 state on any sure foundation, she is welcomed by 
 man to meet the common foe. Such new avenues 
 to wealth and distinction as she can enter with 
 womanly dignity and grace will open to her as 
 fast as man can make them places where she can 
 walk with security and comfort to herself and 
 advantage to them both. And they will open 
 no faster. 
 
 The woman Suffragist has had to wage as bitter 
 a warfare against physical science as against 
 religion. Eliza Burt Gamble, in her volume which 
 discusses "The Evolution of "Woman," takes up 
 the cudgels against both the Bible and man's 
 scientific classification of woman, or rather his 
 failure to classify her properly at all. She says : 
 " When we bear in mind the past experience of 
 the human race, it is not perhaps surprising that, 
 during an era of physical force and the predomi- 
 nance of the animal instincts in man, the doctrine 
 of male superiority should have become firmly 
 grounded. But with the dawn of scientific inves- 
 tigation it might have been hoped that the prej- 
 udices resulting from a lower condition of human 
 society would disappear. When, however, we 
 turn to the most advanced scientific writers of 
 the present century, we find that the prejudices 
 which throughout thousands of years have been
 
 298 WOMAN AND THE REPUBLIC. 
 
 gathering strength are by no means eradicated. 
 Mr. Darwin, whenever he had occasion to touch 
 on the mental capacities of women, or, more par- 
 ticularly, the relative capacities of the sexes, mani- 
 fested the same spirit which characterizes an 
 earlier age." 
 
 Herbert Spencer, in his essay on " Justice," says 
 that he once favored woman suffrage " from the 
 point of view of a general principle of individ- 
 ual rights." Later he finds that this cannot be 
 maintained, because he "discovers mental and 
 emotional differences between the sexes which 
 disqualify women from the burden of government 
 and the exercise of its functions." He also con- 
 siders it absurd for women to claim the vote and 
 military exemption in the name of equality. 
 
 Science has told us of the active, as well as the 
 passive, part that the mother plays in the growth 
 of the embryo, and at the same time has told us 
 that the sex of that embryo is determined by the 
 nourishing power of the mother. The common- 
 place statistics of the census come in with their 
 verifying word, and we find that in rude times 
 and hard conditions more boys are born. Gentle 
 conditions and abundance are favorable to the 
 birth of girls. Here is the same story we have 
 learned so often. Man the protector, woman the 
 protected. Woman the inspiring force, man the 
 organizing and physical power. 
 
 So the Bible, Science, and Kepublican govern- 
 ment, according to Suffragist and Anti-suffragist,
 
 WOMAN SUFFRAGE AND SEX. 299 
 
 have planted themselves squarely on the sex issue. 
 It is solid standing-ground, and neither apparent 
 irrelevancy nor real antagonism will dislodge the 
 argument. 
 
 Dr. Jacobi, in her address before the Consti- 
 tutional Convention, said : " Still, all women do 
 not demand the suffrage. We are sometimes told 
 that the thousands of women who do want the 
 suffrage must wait until those who are now indif- 
 ferent, or even hostile, can be converted from 
 their position. Gentlemen, we declare that 
 theory is preposterous. It is true that the exer- 
 cise of an independent sovereignty necessitates 
 the demonstration of a very considerable amount 
 of independence. A rebel state that cannot break 
 its own blockade may not call upon a foreign 
 power to move from its neutrality to do so. But 
 the demand for equal suffrage is in nowise analo- 
 gous to a claim for independent sovereignty. It 
 is rather analogous to the claim to the protection 
 of existing laws, which any group of people, or 
 even a single person, may make." 
 
 Under a democratic government a claim for 
 equal suffrage is a claim to share the independent 
 sovereignty that protects, and therefore it cannot 
 be analogous to a claim for protection, individual 
 or otherwise, under that sovereignty. Does Dr. 
 Jacobi mean that in asking for suffrage she does 
 not ask to be as much an independent sovereign 
 as any masculine voter of them all ? The com- 
 parison of woman's claims to suffrage to the pro-
 
 300 WOMAN AND THE REPUBLIC. 
 
 tection afforded by existing laws, suggests a nar- 
 rowing of the demand to fit the requirements of 
 an apparently hopeless struggle for a majority 
 vote of women. 
 
 The Government is spoken of by Suffragists as 
 if it were something exterior to and apart from 
 the individual voters a code of laws that had 
 been set going and would run of itself, the laws 
 being changed by more or fewer votes, but the 
 power to execute being automatic and continuous. 
 As this is the opposite of the actual situation, 
 these rebels will have to " break their own block- 
 ade " like any others. 
 
 The " pacific blocade " that is enforced by the 
 Quaker guns of this movement has its peaceful 
 war-cries. One of the most exultant is an allusion 
 to the expression " We the people " in the pre- 
 amble of our national Constitution, with the ques- 
 tion whether " people " does not include women. 
 A reading of the entire preamble shows that, of 
 the six achievements there specified as the pur- 
 pose of the Constitution, every one is a thing that 
 only men can do with the possible exception of 
 the fifth, which proposes rather vaguely to " pro- 
 mote the general welfare." 
 
 As to the thousands of women who want the 
 vote, there are some figures as to the majority that 
 " are indifferent or even hostile." I see by the 
 pamphlet published by the New York State Suf- 
 frage Association, that they have but 1,600 pay- 
 ing members, which is not one in a thousand of
 
 WOMAN SUFFRAGE AND SEX. 301 
 
 the women in the State over twenty years of 
 age. As Mrs. Winslow Crannell has made a 
 careful computation from figures published in 
 the " Woman's Journal," edited by Henry B. 
 Blackwell and his daughter Alice Stone Black- 
 well, I quote her results : In Maine there are but 
 12 Suffragists to every 100,000 of the people ; in 
 New Hampshire, but 5 to every 100,000 ; in Mas- 
 sachusetts, but 51 to every 100,000 ; in Connecti- 
 cut, but 23 to every 100,000. Pennsylvania has 
 but 14 in 100,000 ; Kentucky has 32 to 100,000 ; 
 Michigan, but 6 to 100,000; Illinois has 13 to 
 100,000 ; Ohio has 11 to 100,000 ; Iowa has 6 to 
 100,000 ; Virginia, but 1 to 100,000 ; New Jersey, 
 8 to 100,000; Arkansas, 3 to 100,000; South 
 Carolina, 3 to 100,000. Calfornia has 33 in every 
 100,000, and Maryland has 6 in 100,000. If the 
 suffrage is claimed for tax-paying women, it can 
 be shown that there are, in New York State, for 
 instance, at least 1,500,000 women who do not 
 pay taxes. But, as a matter of fact, the tax- 
 paying women of this State were among the first 
 signers of Anti-suffrage petitions.
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 WOMAN SUFFRAGE AND THE HOME. 
 
 THE tenth count in the Suffrage Declaration is : 
 " He has usurped the prerogative of Jehovah him- 
 self, claiming it as his right to assign for her a 
 sphere of action, when that belongs to her con- 
 science and to her God." 
 
 In the "History of Woman Suffrage," the 
 editors say : " Quite as many false ideas prevail 
 as to woman's true position in the home as else- 
 where. Womanhood is the great fact of her life ; 
 wifehood and motherhood are but incidental rela- 
 tions." 
 
 The first legislation demanded by the Suffra- 
 gists was that which called for a change of the 
 marriage laws, so as to admit of divorce, first 
 for drunkenness, and later for several other 
 causes. In discussing the matter in convention, 
 Mrs. Stanton presented resolutions that declared, 
 among other things, " That any constitution, 
 compact, or covenant between human beings that 
 failed to produce or promote human happiness, 
 could not, in the nature of things, be of any force 
 or authority ; and it would be not only a right, 
 
 but a duty, to abolish it. That though marriage 
 302
 
 WOMAN SUFFRAGE AND THE HOME. 303 
 
 be in itself divinely founded, and is fortified as 
 an institution by innumerable analogies in the 
 whole kingdom of universal nature, still a true mar- 
 riage is only known by its results ; and like the 
 fountain, if pure, will reveal only pure manifesta- 
 tions. That observation and experience daily 
 show how incompetent are men, as individuals, or 
 as governments, to select partners in business, 
 teachers for their children, ministers of their relig- 
 ion, or makers, adjudicators or administrators of 
 their laws ; and as the same weakness and blind- 
 ness must attend in the selection of matrimonial 
 partners, the dictates of humanity and common- 
 sense alike show that the latter and most impor- 
 tant contract should no more be perpetual than 
 either or all of the former." 
 
 In supporting these resolutions, Mrs. Stanton 
 said, " I place man above all governments, eccle- 
 siastical and civil all constitutions and laws." 
 " In the settlement of any question, we must 
 simply consider the highest good of the individ- 
 ual." Antoinette Brown Black well followed Mrs. 
 Stanton with a series of resolutions in which 
 she opposed her, and defended the sanctity of 
 marriage. Wendell Phillips moved that neither 
 series of resolutions be entered on the journal. 
 Mr. Garrison said they did not come together to 
 settle the question of marriage, but he should be 
 sorry to rule out Mrs. Stanton's resolutions and 
 speeches. Miss Anthony said : " I hope Mr. 
 Phillips will withdraw his motion. ... I totally
 
 304 WOMAN AND THE REPUBLIC. 
 
 dissent from the idea that this question does not 
 belong on this platform. Marriage has ever been 
 a one-sided matter. By it, man gains all, woman 
 loses all. Tyrant law and lust reign supreme with 
 him ; meek submission and ready obedience alone 
 befit her. . . . By law, public sentiment, and relig- 
 ion, from the time of Moses down to the present 
 day, woman has never been thought of other than 
 as a piece of property, to be disposed of at the will 
 and pleasure of man. . . . She must accept mar- 
 riage as man proffers it, or not at all." 
 
 The resolutions were carried and recorded, and 
 are published to this day, with added testimony 
 to the same effect from a hundred Suffrage 
 sources. "We turn back to trace one of the lines 
 through which this teaching has come down. 
 The Suffrage leaders mention as special inspirers 
 of their movement besides Ernestine Rose (who 
 seconded Mrs. Stantons resolutions) and Frances 
 "Wright, Margaret Fuller and Mary "Wollstone- 
 craft. In the writings of those women we find the 
 same sentiments set forth with delicacy or vul- 
 garity, according to the nature of the writer. Mar- 
 garet Fuller, in her Dial essay, published in 1843, 
 " The Great Lawsuit Man Versus "Woman, 
 "Woman Versus Man," says : " It is the fault of mar- 
 riage, and of the present relation between the sexes, 
 that the woman belongs to the man, instead of 
 forming a whole with him. It is a vulgar error 
 to suppose that love a love is to woman her 
 whole existence. She is also born for Truth and
 
 WOMAN SUFFRAGE AND THE HOME. 305 
 
 Love in their universal energy. Would she but 
 assume her inheritance, Mary would not be the 
 only virgin mother." Mary Wollstonecraft be- 
 lieved that marriage consisted solely of mutual 
 affection, and that there should be no outward 
 promise or tie to bind. If love were to die, the 
 heart should seek other affinity. The licen- 
 tious words of Frances Wright need not be re- 
 peated. With Mephistophelian promptings, Ernes- 
 tine Rose stood forever a-tip-toe, whispering in 
 the ear of the purer American feeling that would 
 often have faltered. At the time of the passing 
 of Mrs. Stanton's resolutions she said : " But 
 what is marriage ? A human institution, called 
 out by the needs of the social, affectional human 
 nature for human purposes. ... If it is demon- 
 strated that the real objects are frustrated, I 
 ask, in the name of individual happiness and 
 social morality and well-being, why should such 
 a marriage be binding for life ? . . . I ask that 
 personal cruelty to the wife may be made a 
 State's-prison offence, for which divorce shall be 
 granted. Wilful desertion for one year should 
 be a sufficient cause for divorce. . . . Habitual 
 intemperance, or any other vice which makes 
 the husband or wife intolerable and abhorrent to 
 the other, ought to be sufficient cause for divorce." 
 Essentially the same idea was repeated by 
 Dr. Hulda Gunn in a recent Suffrage meeting. 
 In asking for laws that carried out these claims, 
 
 or some of them, Mrs. Stanton said, in addressing 
 20
 
 306 WOMAN AND THE REPUBLIC. 
 
 the New York Legislature in 1854 : " If you take 
 the highest view of marriage as a Divine relation, 
 which love alone can constitute and sanctify, then 
 of course human legislation can only recognize it. 
 . . . But if you regard marriage as a civil con- 
 tract, then let it be subject to the same laws that 
 control all other contracts. Do not make it a kind 
 of half-human, half-divine institution, which you 
 may build up but cannot regulate." 
 
 These doctrines from those of Frances "Wright 
 to those of Mrs. Stanton and Miss Anthony were 
 put forth in the name of social purity and true 
 marriage.. A great body of Suffragists never 
 have accepted them. They were repugnant, in 
 this form, to a majority who were demanding 
 " equal rights." In January, 1871, Mr. Hooker 
 (husband of Isabella Beecher Hooker), said in the 
 New York Evening Post : " The persons who ad- 
 vocate easy divorce would advocate it just as 
 strongly if there was no Suffrage movement. 
 The two have no necessary connection. Indeed, 
 one of the strongest arguments in favor of Woman 
 Suffrage is, that the marriage relation will be 
 safer with women to vote and legislate upon it 
 than where the voting and legislation are left 
 wholly to men. Women will always be wives 
 and mothers, above all things else. This law of 
 nature cannot be changed, and I know of nobody 
 who desires to change it." As he had just been 
 referring to " persons who advocated easy di- 
 vorce," and who originated the Suffrage move-
 
 WOMAN SUFFRAGE AND THE HOME. 307 
 
 ment, his statement that he knew of nobody who 
 desired to change marriage seems funny. 
 
 It was one of the matters remarked upon with 
 satisfaction by Suffrage leaders during our Con- 
 stitutional Convention Suffrage campaign, that 
 such a large number of speakers advocated Suf- 
 frage because of its advantage to the home. Mrs. 
 Cora Seabury said : " Where woman is, homes 
 naturally exist, and not without her. The ' divine 
 veracity in nature,' which in her case has sur- 
 vived the chaos of ages and the varying civil^za- 
 tion of six thousand years, is not now to be dis- 
 proved by an incident comparatively so trivial as 
 that of taking the ballot." Dr. Jacobi puts the 
 idea in this way : " Mr. Gold win Smith declares 
 that woman suffrage aims at such a ' sexual revo- 
 lution ' as must cause the ' dissolution of the fam- 
 ily.' The Suffrage claim does not aim at this ; it 
 seeks only to formulate, recognize, and define the 
 revolution already effected, yet which leaves the 
 family intact. The P atria Potestas is gone. A 
 man has lost, first, the right to kill his own son, 
 then the right to order the marriage of his 
 daughter, then the right to absorb the property 
 of his wife. Nevertheless, he survives, and the 
 family, shorn of its portentous rights, bids fair in 
 America to remain the happiest of all conceivable 
 natural institutions ; more profound than society, 
 so immeasurably deeper than politics that the 
 fortunate wife, daughter, or sister is puzzled when 
 the two are mentioned in the same breath."
 
 308 WOMAN AND THE REPUBLIC. 
 
 All these writers agree in demanding the ballot 
 in order to make some essential change in wo- 
 man's condition. Some of them hold that this 
 change cannot be made unless the relations of 
 wife and mother can be set aside when the indi- 
 vidual considers them detrimental; others hold 
 that it can be made and leave the relations intact; 
 and one believes that this change is already so 
 far made, while the relations are still intact, that 
 nothing need be feared from further change. It 
 reduces itself to matter of opinion and prophecy 
 on the part of those who agree with the early 
 leaders that essential change is needed, but do 
 not agree with them as to the steps necessary. 
 The appeal must be to facts. 
 
 The originators of the movement ought to 
 know what the movement meant. The marriage 
 laws were the first attacked, and are still being 
 hammered at in favor of divorce, although legis- 
 lation has outrun their demand in changing the 
 outgrown laws in regard to property and con- 
 tracts. Mr. Hooker said : " The persons who 
 advocate easy divorce would advocate it just as 
 strongly if there was no Suffrage movement." 
 How can that be, when the women who inspired 
 the Suffrage movement, and who began it and 
 still carry it on, proclaimed this as a necessary 
 part ? But, this question aside, it may be said 
 that the marriage relation has been the most un- 
 safe in the hands of the women whose idea of 
 equality either repudiates it outright or inveighs
 
 WOMAN SUFFRAGE AND THE HOME. 309 
 
 against its present status. From the revolution- 
 ary and infidel portion of France, from which it 
 sprang, to the recently dead Oneida Community, 
 who but women who imbibed the doctrine that 
 marriage was bondage, have sustained the various 
 forms of license which called itself freedom? 
 Transcendentalism and Libertinism worked to- 
 gether, and both found women who could be 
 fitted to the task of destroying the home. 
 
 Mrs. Seabury avers that where Avoman is, homes 
 will naturally exist. Homes have not existed 
 "naturally." There was a long, long time in 
 human history when, not a dream of a home ex- 
 isted. From lawless individualism to tribal life, 
 from tribe to clan, from the clan, at last, through 
 mighty struggles, the family was evolved the 
 final grouping of the race the social unit. That 
 point was not reached until man the savage, man 
 the rover, had consented to be bound, and bound 
 for life, to one woman. It has been one object 
 of Christian civilization to hold man to this sav- 
 ing compact. First to hold his spirit by affection 
 for wife and child, and next to hold his material 
 interests for the sake of society. The work has so 
 well progressed that to-day the man's family is 
 dearer to him than his own life. He will live for 
 them, and fight for them ; and the women who 
 proclaim that man is woman's enemy, are the 
 assassins of their own peace and of the growing 
 peace of home. 
 
 A proof that " women will not always be wives
 
 310 WOMAN AND THE REPUBLIC. 
 
 and mothers above all things else," is to be found 
 in the story of the women who have engaged in 
 intrigue from the days of ancient Egppt. A 
 woman State senator-elect says: "I am a Mor- 
 mon, and believe in polygamy." The organi- 
 zations that are first to proclaim the so-called 
 freedom of woman from the marriage bond, are 
 the same that would repudiate all government, 
 human and divine. 
 
 But man has no more set the founds of woman's 
 life than woman has set those of man's. It is 
 false to say that man has " usurped the preroga- 
 tive of Jehovah," in assigning her a sphere of ac- 
 tion. He has assigned neither her sphere nor his 
 own. Their spheres have been worked out from 
 the conditions that made them male and female. 
 The ideal that faith could picture was presented 
 in the Old Testament, and when Christ said, " For 
 the hardness of your hearts Moses commanded to 
 write a bill of divorcement, but in the beginning 
 it was not so," he spoke the ultimate word. Save 
 for adultery, the family was not to be broken, 
 and the laws of modern life, which grow freer in 
 every other respect, are approaching nearer to 
 this model as society progresses, and most rapidly 
 so in the most progressive states. 
 
 There is a fine bit of unconscious humor in Miss 
 Anthony's remark that " Woman must accept 
 marriage as man proffers it, or not at all." Man 
 is at present blinded by the belief that he must 
 proffer marriage as woman will accept it, or not
 
 WOMAN SUFFRAGE AND THE HOME. 311 
 
 at all. Society has lodged with her what Mrs. 
 Stanton calls " only the veto power." Miss An- 
 thony and Mrs. Stanton apparently wish the 
 women to do the proffering, the accepting, and 
 the rejecting. With so insignificant a part as- 
 signed him, it would seem a pity that there should 
 be a sort of necessity for man to play in the mar- 
 riage role at all. When Suffrage leaders have so 
 arranged matters that the bride retains her maiden 
 name, she can spend her summers in Europe and 
 her winters in Florida, while her husband works 
 all the year round in New York to support her, 
 without her being subjected to the mortification 
 of seeming to desert the man whose name she 
 bears. 
 
 Tou cannot teach this untruth to the girl with- 
 out teaching it to the boy. The struggle of civil- 
 ization has been to teach that manhood was not 
 the great fact of man's life, and he has learned it 
 through the chivalry and tenderness that appealed 
 to and developed his higher nature. But if once he 
 understands that woman does not hold herself in 
 need of his chivalry and tenderness, the husband- 
 hood and fatherhood that now bind him to one 
 sacred vow of married love, and tame the savage 
 within him, will not long prevent him from see- 
 ing his own advantage in the new order. 
 
 Wifehood and motherhood ' incidental relations.' 
 They are incidental ! Incidental not only to the 
 continuance of the race in civilization, but to all 
 that is best and holiest in that continuance. The
 
 312 WOMAN AND THE REPUBLIC. 
 
 mothers of the Kebellion say : " The love of off- 
 spring, common to all orders of women and all 
 forms of animal life, tender and beautiful as it is, 
 cannot as a sentiment rank with conjugal love. 
 The one calls out only the negative virtues that 
 belong to the apathetic classes, such as patience, 
 endurance, self-sacrifice, exhausting the brain 
 forces, ever giving, asking nothing in return ; the 
 other, the outgrowth of the two supreme powers 
 in nature, the positive and negative magnetism, 
 the centrifugal and centripetal forces, the mascu- 
 line and feminine elements, possessing the divine 
 power of creation in the universe of thought and 
 action. Two pure souls fused into one by an im- 
 passioned love. This is marriage, and this is the 
 only corner-stone of an enduring home." 
 
 The "homes" built solely upon this corner- 
 stone have not endured in this country. The 
 children born under such principles are taken care 
 of by the " Community " in a building apart from 
 that occupied by the " pure souls." The " institu- 
 tional " bringing up of children was lately advo- 
 cated in this city by Mrs. Stanton Blatch at Suf- 
 frage meetings. 
 
 The virtues that the Suffrage leaders denounce 
 as " apathetic " are those that Christ signalized as 
 the heavenly virtues, and are those which heroes 
 emulate, whether they be women or men. 
 
 Dr. Jacobi says the Suffrage movement, " aims 
 only to regulate and define the revolution already 
 effected, and which leaves the family intact." I
 
 WOMAN SUFFRAGE AND THE HOME. 313 
 
 think it has been proven from words and acts 
 that it does aim at just such a " sexual revolution " 
 as threatens the family with dissolution. It aimed 
 to accomplish this by every means in its power, 
 by an industrialism which it desired should 
 make woman independent of man, by divorce 
 laws, and by the use of the ballot. Who has 
 shorn man of all his portentous rights? Man 
 himself, through the influence of woman. Is it 
 likely, then, that he was takisg steps in the direc- 
 tion of the destruction of his own home ? He 
 was endeavoring to build it on those sure founda- 
 tions that make it what it is. He can build if 
 woman occupies, but he cannot both fight for the 
 home and against it. Circumstances, and not 
 Suffrage cries, have forced or enticed woman into 
 the trades and professions. She has gone farther 
 afield for her work, partly because the ^Egis of 
 home is more broadly spread than it formerly could 
 be on account of the very strength of the marriage 
 tie, which makes honor, home, and woman more 
 secure. So far as she has gone to help the home, 
 and because of love of it, such causes have not 
 hurt the family life, and will not. But when we 
 come to Suffrage we have met a different matter. 
 The vote is not an affair of feeling or opinion, 
 like religious belief. The fact that the men of the 
 family are the natural defenders of law, and the 
 women are not, is seen at close quarters in the 
 home, and in case of opposite votes and any 
 serious resulting action, the father and son must
 
 314 WOMAN AND THE REPUBLIC. 
 
 stand in the attitude of actual physical as well as 
 political antagonism to the mother and daughter. 
 If it came to an issue, man would have to decide 
 whether he would defend his own opinion, ex- 
 pressed in his ballot, or the opposite opinion ex- 
 pressed by his wife in her ballot. And the mere 
 suggestion of difference in family opinion, final 
 action upon which could only be taken by a resort 
 to that in which the men must always be superior, 
 would not only endanger family life and peace, 
 but would develop a fatal inequality between the 
 sexes. If the women of the family vote with the 
 men, they only double the vote and the expense, 
 without changing the result ; if they vote against 
 the men, they stand in the ridiculous attitude of 
 opposing them where they cannot do more than 
 pull hair, or inviting a revolution which they can- 
 not stay. 
 
 As to the possibility of this, there are a few 
 striking and suggestive facts at hand. The sound 
 judgment and law-abiding element of this country 
 expressed itself in no uncertain tones at the late 
 election. After the defeat of Mr. Bryan, he was 
 given a tremendous demonstration of approval at 
 Denver, in which the women played a conspicuous 
 part. Mrs. Bradford said : " The women tried 
 to welcome you to the White House. When a 
 few more stars have been added to the Equal 
 Suffrage banner, the women will welcome you to 
 the White House." Mrs. Patterson, President of 
 the Equal Suffrage League, said in seconding the
 
 WOMAN SUFFRAGE AND THE HOME. 315 
 
 address of welcome : " Women of Colorado, I 
 present to you the first president of the twentieth 
 century William Jennings Bryan." An invalid 
 of whom I know, travelled from California to 
 her home in Colorado in order to cast her vote for 
 Bryan, while her husband cast his for McKinley 
 in California. Mrs. Cannon, of Utah, was elected 
 on the Free-Silver ticket, against her husband on 
 the Gold-Standard ticket. Mrs. Cronine, a Pop- 
 ulist member of the legislature of Colorado, is 
 reported as saying : " It hurt my husband, a life- 
 long Eepublican, to see me vote against his party 
 and carry both our children with me." Should 
 there be political disturbance in Colorado and 
 Utah, in 1900, here are three husbands on record 
 who might be called upon by the United States 
 authorities to' put down by force, perhaps to kill, 
 those whose lawlessness their wives had insti- 
 gated and abetted. In one instance the man's 
 own sons may fight against him, impelled to do 
 so by the lessons taught by their mother. It re- 
 quires no stretch of fancy to see the possibility 
 of civil war brought to the doors of every home, 
 when women vote. And the occasion that would 
 bring it would not be the saving of the Nation's 
 life, but its overthrow ; not freedom for an op- 
 pressed class, but mingled bondage and license 
 for a sex now free ; not the preservation of home, 
 but its destruction. The Suffrage women who 
 here among us are talking so foolishly about arbi- 
 tration and universal peace, seem to have no con-
 
 316 WOMAN AND THE REPUBLIC. 
 
 ception that with their next breath they are en- 
 deavoring to establish the conditions for the most 
 horrible of conflicts that of Sex. So far from 
 the " taking of the ballot " being " trivial," it is 
 the most serious and dangerous business in which 
 a woman can engage. 
 
 The home is not a natural institution unless 
 it is maintained by natural means, and woman 
 suffrage and the home are incompatible. John 
 Bright, in reply to Mr. Theodore Stanton's ques- 
 tion why he opposed suffrage, said, " I cannot 
 give you all the reasons for the view I take, but 
 I act from the belief that to introduce women 
 into the strife of political life would be a great evil 
 to them, and that to our own sex no possible good 
 could arise. When women are not safe under the 
 charge or care of fathers, husbands, brothers, and 
 sons, it is the fault of our non-civilization, and not 
 of our laws. As civilization founded on Christian 
 principles advances, women will gain all that is 
 right for them to have, though they are not seen 
 contending in the strife of political parties. In 
 my experience I have observed evil results to 
 many women who have entered hotly into polit- 
 ical conflict and discussion. I would save them 
 from it." 
 
 How true this is, and how wise are the fears 
 expressed by Mr. Bright, we realize afresh at 
 every study of the exciting campaign of Novem- 
 ber, 1896. The "Woman's Journal, the Suffrage 
 organ, published a letter from its California cor-
 
 WOMAN SUFFRAGE AND THE HOME. 317 
 
 respondent descriptive of the work of their women 
 in watching the count on the Suffrage amendment. 
 One woman who felt " terribly blue " says that a 
 man patted her on the shoulder and told her to 
 keep up her courage, and she says : " It broke me 
 up, I can tell you, for I never could stand sympa- 
 thy. If people Avill let me alone, I can grit my 
 teeth and stand it, but when they say kind things 
 to me I go to pieces. However, as I was bound I 
 would not show those men how badly I felt, and 
 give them a chance to say women were hysteri- 
 cal, I smiled weakly very weakly, I'm afraid 
 but still it was a smile and passed as such. Then 
 I began to get sick ye gods ! how sick ! The 
 excitement in the booth stopped, but there was 
 an excitement in my head that had not been there 
 before ! Everything got black and began to go 
 round. They could have counted us out a dozen 
 times, and I should never have known the differ- 
 ence." Again the correspondent says : " Mrs. "W. 
 was so tired that she broke down." " Mrs. 
 Babcock waxed eloquent, and had the meeting in 
 tears. Miss Shaw said she wanted to speak of one 
 who had been forgotten, because she came here 
 before any of the rest, and worked so hard that 
 she had ruined her health, and lay pale and white 
 on her couch at home. She stood there, and the 
 tears rolled down her cheeks, and she didn't try 
 to wipe them away. Every one was crying. 
 Mrs. Blinn said, ' I cannot speak. I feel too much 
 to say anything,' and then she broke down and
 
 318 WOMAN AND THE REPUBLIC. 
 
 cried. Mrs. McCann soon had everybody crying 
 about Miss Hay, and when Miss Hay got up she 
 was crying too. So we had a very weepy morn- 
 ing, you see." In describing the departure of 
 Miss Anthony and Rev. Anna Shaw for the East 
 she says : " Oh, it was awful ! awful ! The whole 
 thing was like a funeral." 
 
 With the steady improvement in machinery and 
 in education, the wife and mother can be more 
 and more relieved of work. But the home 
 depends as much as ever upon her love, her skill, 
 her care. She now has means, which science has 
 just taught the world, of learning how to provide, 
 on proper principles, for children, how to dress 
 sensibly, cook wholesomely, make the home sani- 
 tary. Nursing is a fine art now, and comforts 
 can be placed within the reach of every invalid, if 
 the mother knows how to do it. If home is to 
 be hospitable, and a centre of social influence, all 
 the artistic and homely powers are demanded. If 
 the family is to be well-dressed, the mother must 
 attend to it. If home is to be beautiful, the 
 mother and daughter must make it so. In these 
 days, there is little need of slaving ; and there is 
 a glimpse ahead of leisure for thought and self- 
 culture such as men would find it hard to make. 
 The long and enforced retirement of maternity 
 may prove a time for most valuable improvement. 
 In our social life there is too little culture that is 
 the result of absorption by a quiet process of 
 mental assimilation. The place where this can be
 
 WOMAN SUFFRAGE AND THE HOME. 319 
 
 best achieved is in the home. The danger of our 
 fascinating modern life, with its endless calls and 
 opportunities outside, lies in the strain it puts 
 upon systems that are far more delicately or- 
 ganized than man's. Nature meant that women 
 should have periods of quiet. Let us honor our 
 own natures, exalt our own opportunities, love 
 and lead our own lives, and so bless the world and 
 the Republic through perfected homes. 
 
 I have considered this question mainly from the 
 view-point of the wife and mother ; but the home 
 relations are vastly broader. In regard to their 
 whole scope, some of the Suffrage leaders have 
 uttered this dictum : " The isolated household is 
 responsible for a large share of woman's ignor- 
 ance and degradation." If this declaration does 
 not mean that the Suffrage movement aims to 
 tear down the individual home, it means nothing. 
 The world must judge which system is responsible 
 for the larger share of woman's ignorance and 
 degradation.
 
 CHAPTEK XII. 
 
 CONCLUSION. 
 
 IN the opening of this volume I have given it as 
 my opinion that the movement to obtain the 
 elective franchise for woman is not in harmony 
 with those through which woman and govern- 
 ment have made progress. I have spoken of the 
 marvellous forward impulse that has marked the 
 passage of the last half -century, and have men- 
 tioned the growth of religious liberty, the found- 
 ing of foreign and home missions, the extinction 
 of slavery, the temperance movement, the settle- 
 ment of the West, the opening of the professions 
 and trades to women, the progress of mechanical 
 invention, the sudden advance of science, the civil 
 war, and the natural play of free conditions, as 
 among the causes of this impulse. I have pointed 
 out the fact that the Suifrage movement has 
 nearly reached its semi-centennial year, and has 
 made a record by which its relation to these pro- 
 gressive forces can be judged, and I have appealed 
 from the repetition of its claims to the verdict of 
 its accomplishment. 
 
 In the second chapter I have considered the 
 
 320
 
 CONCLUSION. 821 
 
 growth of republican forms the world over, and 
 endeavored to show that the dogma of Woman 
 Suffrage is fundamentally at war with true demo- 
 cratic principles, and that, practically, woman 
 suffrage has been allied with despotism, mon- 
 archy, and ecclesiastical oppression on the one 
 hand, and with the powers of license and misrule 
 that assail republican government on the other. 
 
 In the third chapter I attempt to prove this 
 further by a study of the origin of the Suffrage 
 movement, and by its relation to the Government 
 of the United States. I try to refute the two 
 propositions which it has put forth as solid rest- 
 ing-ground for woman's claim to the elective 
 franchise in this land " Taxation without repre- 
 sentation is tyranny," and " There is no just 
 government without the consent of the gov- 
 erned." I have also set forth the difference be- 
 tween municipal and constitutional suffrage, and 
 shown that the extension of school suffrage, so far 
 from being a stepping-stone to full suffrage, 
 affords another evidence that such full suffrage is 
 un progressive and undemocratic. It is held that 
 regulated, universal manhood suffrage is the 
 natural and only safe basis of government. 
 
 In the fourth chapter I consider the early rela- 
 tion of the Suffrage movement to the causes of 
 anti-slavery and temperance. I also discuss the 
 attitude of the Suffrage leaders during the civil 
 
 21
 
 322 WOMAN AND THE REPUBLIC. 
 
 war, and indicate that the Suffrage movement 
 was not patriotic, and was a hindrance to emanci- 
 pation and reform. 
 
 The fifth chapter treats of the connection of the 
 Suffrage movement with the change that has 
 taken place in the laws, and it contains a synopsis 
 of the present laws of New York regarding 
 women. From this study it appears that the Suf- 
 frage movement did not originate the change in 
 the laws; that many changes most vigorously 
 urged by its associations never have been en- 
 acted ; and that change of laws has not been so 
 much sought as a voice upon change of laws 
 the fact being, that the vote per se has been 
 urged as the panacea for all woman's wrongs. 
 
 The sixth chapter deals with Woman Suffrage 
 and the trades. It shows that this movement was 
 not instrumental in opening the trades to women ; 
 that the conditions of industrial life are not 
 changed in such essentials as Avould involve a 
 change of sex relation to Government ; and that, 
 so far from altering the basis of government, 
 industrialism has introduced new problems of 
 such grave import that security in the enforce- 
 ment of law is doubly necessary. It shows, fur- 
 thermore, that socialistic labor has been naturally 
 the friend of Woman Suffrage, while the safer 
 and sounder organizations have extended sympa- 
 thetic help to woman.
 
 CONCLUSION. 323 
 
 The seventh chapter discusses the connection of 
 Woman Suffrage with the professions. It aims to 
 show that here, too, suffrage has not been neces- 
 sary to gain, for women who were fitted to hold 
 it, an honorable place ; and, in regard to the 
 places they have not yet entered, it is held that 
 the impulse must come from within. It is argued 
 that, in the professions, as in the trades, Suffrage 
 effort has hindered more than it has helped, and 
 that in the West its practical working is the most 
 damaging thing that has attended woman's real 
 progress. 
 
 The eighth chapter considers the connection 
 of Woman Suffrage with education. Its conclu- 
 sions are, that not education, but coeducation, 
 was the persistent demand of Suffragists, and 
 that woman's advancement in college and uni- 
 versity was wrought out by the impulse gained 
 from women who opposed the Suffrage idea, and 
 made practical by men to whom also that idea 
 was repugnant. It is suggested that women who 
 could prepare and defend the ignorant Suffrage 
 Woman's Bible have no right to utter a syllable 
 in protest of the educational ideas of men and 
 women who are competent to speak on the sub- 
 ject, and whose verdict has been, on the whole, 
 for separate study during collegiate age, wher- 
 ever such could be afforded, while it is not dis- 
 puted that coeducation has its place and its 
 uses.
 
 824 OMAN AND THE REPUBLIC. 
 
 The ninth chapter presents Woman Suffrage in 
 its relation to the church. It first discusses, 
 briefly, a few points in the Suffrage "Woman's 
 Bible, published in New York in 1895. This is a 
 commentary on such passages in the Pentateuch 
 as relate to women, and the title " Rev." is pre- 
 fixed to four names of editors on its title-page. 
 This book, or rather a book of which this is the 
 first instalment, was promised by Suffrage writ- 
 ers and speakers from the beginning. It is con- 
 sidered to contain the consummate blossom of the 
 mind that first expounded the Suffrage theory 
 the mind that grasped it as a whole, in its full 
 meaning and intent, and never has wavered in 
 expression as to its ultimate object and the means 
 by which that object is to be sought. This chap- 
 ter sets forth, in few words, the present writer's 
 view of woman in the creation, and of St. Paul's 
 attitude toward woman. The chapter further 
 discusses woman's early preaching in this country, 
 and shows that it has not been such as to build 
 up religion or the state, but has been such as to 
 suggest that, while the possibilities of her nature 
 tend to make her supreme in capacity to point 
 the way to higher regions, it also contains quali- 
 ties that may render her peculiarly dangerous as 
 a public leader. 
 
 The tenth chapter, entitled " Woman Suffrage 
 and Sex," alludes briefly to the social evil, and 
 then discusses the Suffrage ideas in regard to sex
 
 CONCLUSION. 325 
 
 as explained by both their older and more recent 
 writers. It discusses the disabilities of sex in 
 relation to the suffrage the difficulties in the 
 way of jury duty, police duty, and office-holding 
 and draws the conclusion that the fulfilment 
 of such necessary work of the voting citizen is 
 practically an impossibility for woman, and has 
 been found to be so in the Western States. 
 
 The eleventh chapter has for its title " Woman 
 Suffrage and the Home." It sets forth the belief 
 that the Suffrage movement strikes a blow 
 squarely at the home and the marriage relation, 
 and that the ballot is demanded by its most rep- 
 resentative leaders for the purpose of making 
 woman independent of the present social order. 
 It argues that communism is the natural ally of Suf- 
 frage, and that, as homes did not spring out of 
 , the ground, they will not remain where men and 
 women alter the mutual relations out of which 
 the institution of home has slowly grown. 
 
 The general conclusion of the book is, that 
 woman's relation to the Republic is as important 
 as man's. Woman deals with the beginnings of 
 life; man, with the product made from those 
 beginnings ; and this fact marks the difference in 
 their spheres, and reveals woman's immense ad- 
 vantage in moral opportunity. It also suggests 
 the incalculable loss in case her work is not done 
 or ill done. In a ruder age the evident value of
 
 3-26 WOMAN AND THE REPUBLIC. 
 
 power that could deal with developed force was 
 most appreciated ; but such is not now the case. 
 It lies with us to prove that education, instead of 
 causing us to attempt work that belongs even 
 less to the cultivated woman than to the ignorant, 
 is fitting us to train up statesmen who will be the 
 first to do us honor. The American Republic 
 depends finally for its existence and its greatness 
 upon the virtue and ability of American woman- 
 hood. If our ideals are mistaken or unworthy, 
 then there will be ultimately no republic for men 
 to govern or defend. When women are Bud- 
 dhists, the men build up an empire of India. When 
 women are Mohammedans, the men construct an 
 Empire of Turkey. When women are Christians, 
 men can conceive and bring into being a Republic 
 like the United States. Woman is to implant the 
 faith, man is to cause the Nation's faith to show 
 itself in works. More and more these duties 
 overlap, but they cannot become interchangeable 
 while sex continues to divide the race into the 
 two halves of what should become a perfect whole. 
 Woman Suffrage aims to sweep away this nat- 
 ural distinction, and make humanity a mass of 
 individuals with an indiscriminate sphere. The 
 attack is now bold and now subtle, now malicious 
 and now mistaken ; but it is at all times an attack. 
 The greatest danger with which this land is 
 threatened comes from the ignorant and persist- 
 ent zeal of some of its women. They abuse the 
 freedom under which they live, and to gain an
 
 CONCLUSION. 327 
 
 impossible power would fain destroy the Govern- 
 ment that alone can protect them. The majority 
 of women have no sympathy with this movement ; 
 and in their enlightenment, and in the consistent 
 wisdom of our men, lies our hope of defeating this 
 unpatriotic, unintelligent, and unjustifiable assault 
 upon the integrity of the American Republic. 
 
 NEW YORK, March, 1897. 
 
 THE END.
 
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