# History of Woman Suffrage/Volume 4/Chapter 7

Contents
CHAPTER VII.
THE NATIONAL SUFFRAGE CONVENTION OF 1887.
The Nineteenth national convention assembled in the M. E. Metropolitan Church of Washington, Jan. 25, 1887, continuing in session three days. On no evening was the building large enough to accommodate the audience. The Rev. John P. Newman, pastor of the church, prayed earnestly for the blessing of God "on these women, who, through good and evil report, have been striving for the right." Miss Susan B. Anthony came directly from the Capitol and opened the convention by reading a letter from Mrs. Elizabeth Cady Stanton, who was in England. She then referred to the fact that while this convention was in session the United States Senate was discussing the question of woman suffrage. There would be taken the first direct vote in that body on a Sixteenth Amendment to enfranchise women. The attention of the advocates of woman suffrage was directed to Congress for the first time when the Fourteenth Amendment was under discussion in 1865. That article in the beginning was broad enough to include women but political expediency inserted the word "male," so that if any State should disfranchise any of its male citizens they should be counted out of the basis of representation. She continued:
Mrs. Stanton's letter said in part:
But if Senators Cockrell and Brown hope to dispose of the question by remanding us to "the chimney corner" we trust their constituents will send them to keep us company, that they may enliven our retirement and make us satisfied 'in the sphere where the Creator intended we should be' by daily intoning for us their inspired minority report.
The one pleasant feature in this original document is the harmony between the views of these gentlemen and their Creator. The only drawback to our faith in their knowledge of what exists in the Divine mind, is in the fact that they can not tell us when, where and how they interviewed Jehovah. I have always found that when men have exhausted their own resources, they fall back on "the intentions of the Creator." But their platitudes have ceased to have any influence with those women who believe they have the same facilities for communication with the Divine mind as men have.
Mrs. Caroline Hallowell Miller (Md.) paid a beautiful tribute to Miss Anthony, "the Sir Galahad in search of the Holy Grail," and closed with an eloquent prophecy of future success. Mrs. Lillie Devereux Blake (N. Y.) gave a clever satire on The Rights of Men, which was very imperfectly reported.
Then, too, have not men, poor fellows, had to do all the talking since the world began? Have we not heretofore been the silent sex? Even to-day a thousand men speak from pulpit and platform where one woman uplifts her voice.
But let us pass to other and more important rights which have been denied to man in the past. The first right that any man ought to be allowed—a right paramount to all others—is the right to a wife. But look how even in this matter he has been hardly dealt with. Has he had just standards set before him as to what a wife should be? No, but he has been led to believe that the weak woman, the dependent woman, is the one to be desired. .
Look again at the unhappy mess into which man all by himself has brought politics and public affairs. Is it not too bad to leave him longer alone in his misery? Like the naughty boy who has broken and destroyed his toys, who needs mamma to help him mend them, and perhaps also to administer to him such wholesome discipline as Solomon himself has advised—so does man need woman to come to his rescue. Look what politics is now. Who to-day can tell the difference between a Democrat and a Republican? Even a Mugwump is becoming a doubtful being.
Do not these wrongs which men suffer appeal to our tenderest sympathies? Is it not evident that the poor fellows can't go on alone much longer, that it is high time we should take the boys in hand and show them what a correct government really is?
There is another question which deserves our gravest consideration. Man sinks or rises with woman; if she is degraded he is tempted to vice; if she is oppressed he is brutalized. What is the industrial condition of women to-day? ....
​In behalf of the sons, the brothers and the husbands of these wage-earning women we ask for that political power which alone will insure equality of pay without regard to sex. For the sake of man's redemption and morality we demand that this injustice shall cease, for it is not possible for woman to be half-starved and man not dwarfed; for many women to be degraded and all men's lives pure; for women to be fallen and no man lost.
We all know that man himself has been most willing to grant to women every right, every opportunity. If he has hesitated it has been rather from love and admiration of woman than from any tyrannical desire of oppression. He has said that women must not vote because they can not perform military duty. Can they not serve the nation as well as those men, who during the last war sent substitutes and to-day hold the highest places in the Government? But we ask one question: Which every year does most for the State, the soldier or the mother who risks her life not to destroy other life but to create it? Of the two it would be better to disfranchise the soldiers and enfranchise the mothers. For much as the nation owes to the soldiers, she owes far more to the mothers who in endless martyrdom make the nation a possibility. ....
Man deserves that we should consider his present unhappy condition. In all ages he has proved his reverence for woman by embodying every virtue in female form, and has left none for himself. Truth and chastity, mercy and peace, charity and justice, all are represented as feminine, and lately, as a proof of his devotion, he has erected at the entrance to the harbor of our greatest metropolis a statue of liberty and this too is represented as a woman.
One interesting address followed another throughout the convention, presenting the question of suffrage for women with appeal, humor, logic, statistics and every variety of argument.
Mrs. Harriette Robinson Shattuck (Mass.) presented in striking contrast The Women Who Ask and the Women Who Object. Mrs. Elizabeth Boynton Harbert in a fine address told of Our Motherless Government. Mrs. Isabella Beecher Hooker (Conn.) gave for the first time her masterly speech, The Constitutional Rights of the Women of the United States, which has been so widely circulated in pamphlet form, and which closed with this peroration:
In an impassioned address Mrs. Mary Seymour Howell (N. Y.) contrasted The Present and the Past, saying: The destiny of the world to-day lies in the hearts and brains of her women. The world can not travel upward faster than the feet of her women are climbing the paths of progress. Put us back if you can; veil us in harems; make us beasts of burden; take from us all knowledge; teach us we are only material; and humanity will go back to the dark ages. The nineteenth century is closing over a world arising from bondage. It is the grandest, sublimest spectacle ever beheld. The world has seen and is still looking at the luminous writing in the heavens—"The truth shall make you free"—and for the first time is gathering to itself the true significance of liberty. All the progress of these years has not come easily or from conservatism, but from the persistent efforts of enthusiastic radicals, men and women with ideas in their heads and courage in their hearts to make them practical.
Ever since woman took her life in her own hands, ever since she began to think for herself, the dawning of a great light has flooded the world. We are the mothers of men. Show me the mothers of a country and I will tell you of the sons. If men would ever rise above their sensuality and materialism, they must have mothers whose pure souls, brave hearts and clear intellects have touched them deeply before their birth and equipped them for the journey of life. ....
It is the evening of the nineteenth century, but the starlight is clearer than the morning of its existence. I look back and see in each year improvement and advancement. I see woman gathering up her soul and personality and claiming them as her own against all odds and the world. I see her asking that this personality may ​be impressed upon her nation. I see her speaking her soul from platforms, preaching in pulpits of a life of which this is the shadow. I see her pleading before courts, using her brains to solve the knotty questions of the law. Woman's sphere is the wide world, her sceptre the mind that God has given her, her kingdom the largest place that she has the brains to fill and the will to hold. So is woman influencing the world, and as her sphere widens the world grows better. With the freedom she now has, see how she is arousing the public conscience on all questions of right. ....
Mrs. Pearson of Nottingham gave a glowing account of the progress of suffrage in England and the work of the Primrose League; Madame Clara Neymann (N. Y.) made a scholarly address entitled Skeptics and Skepticism; Mrs. Clara Bewick Colby (Neb.), the Rev. Rush R. Shippen of Washington City and Miss Phoebe W. Couzins (Mo.) were among the speakers. Delegate Joseph M. Carey (Wy.) said in the course of his address:
Mrs. Carey sat on the platform with Miss Anthony, Mrs. Hooker and other prominent members of the convention. The eloquent address of Mrs. May Wright Sewall (Ind.) on The Con​ditions of Liberty attracted special attention. Mrs. Caroline Gilkey Rogers (N. Y.) proved in an original manner that There is Nothing New under the Sun. In a statesmanlike paper Mrs. Matilda Joslyn Gage (N. Y.) set forth the authority of Congress to secure to woman her right to the ballot:
In ratifying an amendment States become factors in the nation, the same as by the acts of their representatives and senators in Congress. A law created by themselves in this way can be no interference with their local rights of self-government; because in helping enact these laws, either through congressional action, or by legislative ratification of amendments, each State has arisen above and beyond itself into a higher national realm.
The one right above all others which is not local is the right of self-government. That right being the corner stone on which the nation was founded, is a strictly national right. It is not local, it is not State. ....
In her address on The Work of Women, Miss Mary F. Eastman (Mass.) said: "Men say the work of the State is theirs. The State is the people. The origin of government is simply that two men call in a third for umpire. The ideal of the State is gradually rising. No State can be finer in its type of government than the individuals who make it. We enunciate a grand ​principle, then we are timid and begin restricting its application. We are a nation of infidels to principle."
The leading feature of the last evening was the meth ae of Mrs. Zerelda G. Wallace (Ind.) on Woman's Ballot a Necessity for the Permanence of Free Institutions. A Washington paper said: "As she stood upon the platform, holding her hearers as in her hand, she looked a veritable queen in Israel and the personification of womanly dignity and lofty bearing. The line of her argument was irresistible, and her eloquence and pathos perfectly bewildering. Round after round of applause greeted her as she poured out her words with telling effect upon the great congregation before her, who were evidently in perfect accord with her earnest and womanly utterances.";
An imperfect extract from a newspaper report will suggest the trend of her argument:
I will ask the American question "will it pay" to enfranchise the women of this nation—I will not say republic? The world has never been blessed with a republic. Those who think this is a narrow struggle for woman's rights have never conceived the height, length and breadth of this momentous question.
The purpose of divinity is enunciated in that it is said He would create humanity in His image. The purpose of the Creator is that the two are to have dominion; woman is included in the original grant. Free she must be before you yourselves will be free. The highest form of development is to govern one's self. No man governs himself who practices injustice to another. ....
We have passed through one Gethsemane because of our refusal to co-operate with the Deity in His purpose to establish justice and liberty on this continent. It took a hundred years and a Civil War to evolve the principle in our nation that all men were created free and equal. Will it require another century and another Civil War before there is secured to humanity the God-given inalienable right to "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness?" The most superficial observer can see elements at work, a confusion of forces, that can only be wiped out in blood, unless some new, unifying power is brought into Government. No class was ever known to extend a right or share the application of a just principle as long as it could safely retain these exclusively for itself.
We have no quarrel with men. They are grand and just and noble in exact proportion as their spiritual nature is exalted. As ​sure as you live down low to the animal that is in you, will the animal dominate your nature. Woman is the first to recognize the Divine. When God was incarnated in humanity, when the Word was made flesh and born of a woman, the arsenal of Heaven was exhausted to redeem the race. ....
Woman is your last resource, and she will not fail you. I have faith that humanity is to be perfected. Examine the record for yourselves. I do not agree with the view of some of our divines. We find the Creator taking a survey, and man is the only creation he finds imperfect. Therefore a help-meet is created for him. According to accepted theology the first thing that help-meet does is to precipitate him into sin. I have unbounded faith in the plans of God and in His ability to carry them out, and when He said He would make a help-meet I believe He did it, and that Eve helped Adam, gave him an impetus toward perfection, instead of causing him to fall. Man was a noble animal and endowed with intellectual ability, but Eve found him a moral infant and tried to teach him to discriminate between good and evil. That is the first and greatest good which comes to anybody, and Adam, instead of falling down when he ate the apple, rose up. There is no moral or spiritual growth possible without being able to discern good from evil. Adam was an animal superior to all others that preceded him, but it needed a woman to quicken his spiritual perceptions.
Eve having taken it upon herself to teach man to know the difference between good and evil, the responsibility rests upon woman to teach man to choose the good and refuse the evil. She will do this if she has freedom of opportunity.
Man has been given schools to develop brain power, and I do not underrate their value. He has nearly entered into his domain as far as the material forces are concerned, but there is a moral and spiritual element in humanity which eludes his grasp in practically everything he undertakes. This lack of the moral element is to-day our greatest danger. We do not ask for the ballot because men are tyrants, but because God has made us the conservators of the race. To-day we are queens without a scepter; the penalty to the nation is that men are largely indifferent to its best interests and many do not vote. Men are under the influence of women during the formative period of their lives, first of their mothers, then of women teachers; how can they do otherwise than underestimate the value of citizenship? How can the young men of this nation be inspired with a love of justice? It is a dangerous thing that the education of citizens is given over to women, unless these teachers have themselves the rights of citizens. How can you expect such women as have addressed you here in this convention to teach the youth to honor a Government which thus dishonors women?
The world has never known but one Susan B. Anthony. God and the world needed her and God gave her to the world and to humanity. The next Statue of Liberty will have her features. Of all the newspaper criticisms and remarks which have been made about her I read one the other day which exactly suited me; it called her "that grand old champion of progress."
​The women are coming and the men will be better for their coming. Men say women are not fit to govern because they can not fight. When men live upon a very low plane so there is only one way to manage them and that is to knock them on the head, that is true. It probably was true of government in the beginning, but we are to grow up out of this low state.
When we reach the highest development, moral and spiritual forces will govern. That women can and do govern even in our present undeveloped condition is shown by the fact that three-fourths of our educators are women. I remember when it used to be said, "You can not put the boys and girls into the hands of women, because they can not thrash them." To-day brute force is almost entirely eliminated from our schools. That women should not take part in government because they can not fight was probably true in ages gone by when governments were maintained by brute force, but it does not obtain in a government ruled by public opinion expressed on a little piece of paper. Women as a class do not fight, and that is the reason they are needed to introduce into government a power of another kind, the power with which women govern their children and their husbands, that beautiful law of love which is to be the only thing that remains forever.
Our statesmen are doubting the success of self-government. They say universal suffrage is a failure, forgetting that we have never had universal suffrage. The majority of the race has never expressed its sense in government. We are a living falsehood when we compare the basic principles of our Government with things as they are now. It is becoming a common expression, "The voice of the people is not the voice of God." If you do not find God in the voice of the people you can not find him anywhere. It is said, "Power inheres in the people," and the nation is shorn of half its power for progress as long as the ballot is not in the hands of women.
What has caused heretofore the downfall of nations? The lack of morality in government. It will eat out the life of a nation as it does the heart of an individual. This question of woman's equal rights, equal duties, equal responsibilities, is the greatest which has come before us. The destiny of the whole race is comprised in four things: Religion, education, morals, politics. Woman is a religious being; she is becoming educated; she has a high code of morals; she will yet purify politics.
I want to impress upon the audience this thought, that every man is a direct factor in the legislation of this land. Every woman is not a direct factor, but yet is more or less responsible for every evil
Mrs. Hannah Whitall Smith (Penn.) pronounced the benediction at the closing session.
​Sixteen States were represented at this Nineteenth convention, and reports were sent from many more. Mrs. Sewall, chairman of the executive committee, presented a comprehensive report of the past year's work, which included appeals to many gatherings of religious bodies. Conventions had been held in each congressional district of Kansas and Wisconsin. She referred particularly to the completion of the last of the three volumes of the History of Woman Suffrage by Miss Anthony, Mrs. Stanton and Mrs. Gage. An elaborate plan of work was adopted for the coming year, which included the placing of this History in public libraries, a continuation of the appeals to religious assemblies, the appointment of delegates to all of the approaching national political conventions, and the holding by each vice-president of a series Of conventions in the congressional districts of her State. It was especially desired that arrangements should be made for the enrollment in every State of the women who want to vote, and Mrs. Colby was appointed to mature a suitable plan.
Among the extended resolutions adopted were the following:
Whereas, Nearly one-third of the Senators voted for the amendment; therefore,
Resolved, That we rejoice in this evidence that our demand is forcing itself upon the attention and action of Congress, and that when a new Congress shall have assembled, with new men and new ideas, we may hope to change this minority into a majority.
Whereas, The Anti-Polygamy bill passed by both Houses of Congress provides for the disfranchisement of the non-polygamous women of Utah; and
Whereas, The women thus sought to be disfranchised have been for years in the peaceable exercise of the ballot, and no charge is made against them of any crime by reason of which they should lose their vested rights; therefore,
Resolved, That this association recognizes in these measures a disregard of individual rights which is dangerous to the liberties of all; since to establish the precedent that the ballot may be taken away is to threaten the permanency of our republican form of government.
Resolved, That we call the attention of the working women of the country to the fact that a disfranchised class is always an oppressed class and that only through the protection of the ballot can they secure equal pay for equal work.
Resolved, That we recognize as hopeful signs of the times the ​indorsement of woman suffrage by the Knights of Labor in national assembly, and by the National Woman's Christian Temperance Union, and that we congratulate these organizations upon their recognition of the fact that the ballot in the hands of woman is necessary for their success.
Thanks were extended to the United States Senators who voted for a Sixteenth Amendment. A committee was appointed, Mrs. Blake, chairman, to wait upon President Grover Cleveland and protest against the threatened disfranchising of the women of Washington Territory; also to secure a hearing before the proper congressional committee in reference to the Edmunds-Tucker Bill, which proposed to disfranchise both the Gentile and Mormon women of Utah. The usual large number of letters were received.
The following letter was read from ex-United States Treasurer F. E. Spinner, the first official to employ women:
A committee consisting of the national board and chairman of the executive committee was appointed to arrange for a great international meeting the next year.
On the opening day of this convention a vote on woman suffrage was taken in the United States Senate as described in the preceding chapter; at its close a telegram was received that a Municipal Suffrage Bill had been passed by the Kansas Legislature; and its members separated with the consciousness that two distinctly progressive steps had been taken.
* ↑ Dr. Newman was an advocate of suffrage for women. After he became Bishop he wrote for publication, July 12, 1894: "The exalted mission of Christianity is to reverse the verdict of the world on the rights of woman. Until Christ came she had been regarded by State and Church, in the most highly civilized lands, as the servant of man, created for his pleasure and subordinated to his authority. Her rights of life, property and vocation were in his hands for control and final disposition.   "Against this tyranny we wage a war of extermination. Henceforth in State and Church, in business and pleasure, whether married or single, woman is to be esteemed an individual, one of the two equal units of humanity, to count one the whole world over, and to possess and exercise the rights of 'life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.'"
* ↑ Among the writers were Harriot Stanton Blatch of England, the Rev. Frederick A. Hinckley, Philadelphia; Prudence Crandall Philleo (Kan.); Mary V. Cowgill, Mary J. Coggeshall, editor Woman's Standard, (Ia.); Belva A. Lockwood (D. C.); General and Mrs. Rufus Saxton, Sallie Clay Bennett (Ky.); Alice M. Pickler (Dak.); Sarah R. Langdon Williams, Sarah M. Perkins (O.); Mr. and Mrs. McClung (Tenn.); telegram signed by Emmeline B. Wells and a long list of names from Utah.