# History of Woman Suffrage/Volume 4/Chapter 6

Contents
CHAPTER VI.
FIRST DISCUSSION AND VOTE IN THE U. S. SENATE — 1887.
Although the Senate Select Committee on Woman Suffrage had reported several times in favor of a Sixteenth Amendment to the Federal Constitution which should prohibit disfranchisement on account of sex, and although Thomas W. Palmer, in 1885, had delivered a speech on the question in the Senate, it never had been brought to a discussion and vote. Urged by the members of the National Association, and by his own strong convictions as to the justice of the cause, Senator Henry W. Blair (N. H.), on Dec. 8, 1886, called up the following, which he had reported for the majority of the committee on February 2 of that year:
Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled (two-thirds of each House concurring therein), That the following article be proposed to the Legislatures of the several States as an amendment to the Constitution of the United States; which, when ratified by three-fourths of the said Legislatures, shall be valid as part of said Constitution, namely:
Section 1. The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.
Senator Blair supported this resolution in a long and ​prehensive speech, that will be recorded in history as one of the ablest ever made on this subject, in the course of which he said:
Upon solemn occasions concerning grave public affairs, and when large numbers of the citizens of the country desire to test the sentiments of the people upon an amendment of the organic law in the manner provided by the provisions of that law, it may well become the duty of Congress to submit the proposition to the amending power, which is the same as that which created the original instrument itself—the electors of the several States. It can hardly be claimed that two-thirds of each branch of Congress must necessarily be convinced that the Constitution should be amended, before it submits the same to the judgment of the States.
If there be any principle upon which our form of government is founded, and wherein it is different from aristocracies, monarchies and despotisms, that principle is this: Every human being of mature powers, not disqualified by ignorance, vice or crime, is the equal of and is entitled to all the rights and privileges which belong to any other human being under the law.
The independence, equality and dignity of all human souls is the fundamental assertion of those who believe in what we call human freedom. But we are informed that women are represented by men. This can not reasonably be claimed unless it first be shown that their consent has been given to such representation, or that they lack the capacity to consent. But the exclusion of this class from the suffrage deprives them of the power of assent to representation even when they possess the requisite ability. ....
The Czar represents his whole people, just as much as voting men represent women who do not vote at all.
True it is that the voting men, in excluding women and other classes from the suffrage, by that act charge themselves with the trust of administering justice to all, even as the monarch whose power is based upon force is bound to rule uprightly. But if it be true that "all just government is founded upon the consent of the governed," then the government of woman by man, without her consent given in a sovereign capacity, even if that government be wise and just in itself, is a violation of natural right and an enforcement of servitude against her on the part of man. If woman, like the infant or the defective classes, be incapable of self-government, then republican society may exclude her from all participation in the enactment and enforcement of the laws under which she lives. But in that case, like the infant and the idiot and the unconsenting subject of tyrannical forms of government, she is ruled and not represented by man. This much I desire to say in the beginning in reply to the broad assumption of those who deny women the suffrage by ​saying that they are already represented by their fathers, their husbands, their brothers and their sons.
The common ground upon which all agree may be stated thus: All males having certain qualifications are in reason and in law entitled to vote. These qualifications affect either the body or the mind or both. The first is the attainment of a certain age. The age in itself is not material, but maturity of mental development is material, although soundness of body in itself is not essential, and want of it never works forfeiture of the right. Age as a qualification for suffrage is by no means to be confounded with age as a qualification for service in war. Society has well established the distinction, and also that one has no relation whatever to the other— the one having reference to physical prowess, while the other relates only to the mental state. This is shown by the ages fixed by law, that of eighteen years as the commencement of the term of presumed fitness for military service and forty-five as the period of its termination; while the age of presumed fitness for the suffrage, which requires no physical superiority certainly, is set at twenty-one years when still greater strength of body has been attained than at the period when liability to the dangers and hardships of war begins. There are at least three million more male voters in our country than of the population liable by law to the performance of military duty. It is still further to be observed that the right of suffrage continues as long as the mind lasts, while ordinary liability to military service ceases at a period when the physical powers, though still strong, are beginning to wane. The truth is that there is no legal or natural connection between the liability to fight and the right to vote.
The right to fight may be exercised voluntarily, or the liability to fight may be enforced by the community, whenever there is need for it, and the extent to which the physical forces of society may be called upon in self-defense or in justifiable revolution is measured not by age or sex, but by necessity, which may go so far as to call into the field old men and women and the last vestige of physical force. It can not be claimed that woman has no right to vote because she is not liable to fight, for she is so liable, and the freest government on the face of the earth has the reserved power under the call of necessity to place her in the forefront of the battle itself; and more than this, woman has the right, and often has exercised it, to go there. If any one could question the existence of this reserved power to call woman to the common defense, either in the hospital or the field, it would be woman herself, who has been deprived of participation in the Government and in shaping public policies which have resulted in dire emergency to the State. But in all times, and under all forms of government and of social existence, woman has given her body and her soul to the common defense.
The qualification of age, then, is imposed for the purpose of securing mental and moral fitness for the suffrage on the part of those who exercise it. It has no relation to the possession of physical powers at all.
​The property qualification for suffrage is, to my mind, an invasion of natural right, which elevates mere property to an equality with life and personal liberty, and it ought never to be imposed. But, however that may be, its application has no relation to sex, and its only object is to secure the exercise of the suffrage under a stronger sense of obligation and responsibility. The same is true of the qualifications of sanity, education and obedience to the laws, which exclude dementia, ignorance and crime from participation in the sovereignty. Every condition or qualification imposed upon the exercise of the suffrage, save sex alone, has for its only object or possible justification the possession of mental and moral fitness, and has no relation to physical power.
The question then arises why is the qualification of masculinity required? The distinction between human beings by reason of sex is a physical distinction. The soul is of no sex. If there be a distinction of soul by reason of the physical difference, woman is the superior of man. In proof of this see the minority report of this committee with all the eulogiums of woman pronounced by those who, like the serpent of old, would flatter her vanity that they may continue to wield her power. I repeat that the soul is of no sex, and that so far as the possession and exercise of human rights and powers are concerned, sex is but a physical property, whose possession renders the female just as important as the male, and in just as great need of power in the government of society. If there be a difference, however, her average physical inferiority is really compensated for by a superior mental and moral fitness to give direction to the course of society and to the policy of the State. If, then, there be a distinction between the souls of human beings resulting from sex, woman is better fitted for the exercise of the suffrage than man.
It is asserted by some that the suffrage is an inherent natural right, and by others that it is merely a privilege extended to the individual by society at its discretion. However this may be, its extension to any class must come through the exercise of the suffrage by those who already possess it. Therefore, the appeal by those who have it not must be made to those who are asked to part with a portion of their own power. It is only human nature that the male sex should hesitate to yield one-half of its power to those whose cause, however strong in reason and justice, lacks that physical force by which so largely the masses'of men themselves have wrung their own rights from rulers and kings.
It is not strange that when overwhelmed with argument and half won by appeals to his better nature, and ashamed to refuse blankly that which he finds no reason for longer withholding, man avoids the dilemma by a pretended elevation of woman to a higher sphere, where, as an angel, she has certain gauzy, ethereal resources and superior attributes and functions which render the possession of mere earthly, every-day powers and privileges non-essential to her, however mere mortal men may find them indispensable to their own freedom and happiness. But to the denial of her right to vote, ​whether that denial be the blunt refusal of the ignorant or the polished evasion of the refined courtier and politician, woman can oppose only her most solemn and perpetual appeal to the reason of man and to the justice of Almighty God. She must continually point out the nature and object of the suffrage and the necessity that she possess it for her own and the public good.
What, then, is the suffrage, and why is it necessary that woman should possess and exercise this function of freemen? I quote briefly from the majority report of the Senate Committee:
"The rights for the maintenance of which human governments are constituted are life, liberty and property. These rights are common to men and women alike and both are entitled to the sovereign power to protect these rights. This right to the protection of rights appertains to the individual, not to the family, or to any form of association, whether social or corporate. Probably not more than five-eighths of the men of legal age, qualified to vote, are heads of families, and not more than that proportion of adult women are united with men in the legal merger of married life. It is, therefore, quite incorrect to speak of the State as an aggregate of families duly represented at the ballot-box by their male head. The relation between the government and the individual is direct; all rights are individual rights, all duties are individual duties.
"Government in its two highest functions is legislative and judicial. By these powers the sovereignty prescribes the law and directs its application to the vindication of rights and the redress of wrongs. Conscience and intelligence are the only forces which enter into the exercise of these primary and highest functions of government. The remaining department is the executive or administrative, and in all forms of government the primary element of administration is force, but even in this department conscience and intelligence are indispensable to its direction.
"If, now, we are to decide who of our sixty millions of human beings are, by virtue of their qualifications, to be the law-making power, by what tests shall the selection be determined? The suffrage is this great primary law-making power. It is not the executive power. It is not founded upon force. Never in the history of this or any other genuine republic has the law-making power, whether in general elections or in the framing of laws in legislative assemblies, been vested in individuals by reason of their physical powers. ....
"The executive power of itself is a mere physical instrumentality —an animal quality—and it is confided from necessity to those who possess that quality, but always with danger, except so far as wisdom and virtue control its exercise. Therefore it is obvious that the greater the spiritual forces, whether found in those who execute the law, or in the large body by whom the suffrage is exercised, and who direct its execution, the greater will be the safety and the surer will be the happiness of the State.
​"It is too late to question the intellectual and moral capacity of woman to understand political issues and intelligently decide them at the polls. Indeed the pretense is no longer advanced that woman should not vote because of her mental or moral unfitness to perform this legislative function; but the suffrage is denied to her because she can neither hang criminals, suppress mobs nor handle the enginery of war. We have already seen the untenable nature of this assumption, because those who make it bestow the suffrage upon very large classes of men who, however well qualified they may be to vote, are physically unable to perform any of the duties which appertain to the execution of the law and the defense of the State. Scarcely a Senator on this floor is liable by law to perform military or other administrative duty, yet this rule set up against the right of women to vote would disfranchise nearly this whole body.
Mr. Blair then demonstrated the intellectual ability of the woman of the present day, proving in this respect her capacity and fitness to vote. He quoted from the minority report of the Senate Committee, which had been submitted by Senators Brown and Cockrell, saying:
The right to vote is the great primitive right in which all freedom originates and culminates. It is the right from which all others spring, in which they merge, and without which they fall whenever assailed. This right makes all the difference between government by and with the consent of the governed, and government without and against the consent of the governed; and that is the difference between freedom and slavery. If the right to vote be not that difference, what is? If either sex as a class can dispense with the ​right to vote, then take it from the strong and do not longer rob the weak of their defense for the benefit of the strong. But it is impossible to conceive of the suffrage as a right dependent at all upon such an irrelevant condition as sex. It is an individual, a personal right, and if withheld by reason of sex it is a moral robbery.
It is said that the duties of maternity disqualify for the performance of the act of voting. It can not be, and I think is not claimed by any one, that the mother who otherwise would be fit to vote is rendered mentally or morally less fit to exercise this high function in the State because of motherhood. On the contrary, if any woman has a motive more than another person, man or woman, to secure the enactment and enforcement of good laws, it is the mother, who, besides her own life, person and property—to the protection of which the ballot is as essential as to those of man—has her little contingent of immortal beings to conduct safely to the portals of active life through all the snares and pitfalls woven around them by bad men and bad laws, and to prepare rightly for the discharge of all the duties of their day and generation, including, if boys, the exercise of the very right denied to their mother.
Certainly if but for motherhood woman should vote, then ten thousand times more necessary is it that the mother should be armed with this great social and political power for the sake of all men and women who are yet to be. It is said that she has not the time. Let us see. By the best deductions I can make from the census and from other sources, of the women of voting age in this country not more than one-half are married and still liable to the duties of maternity; for it will be remembered that a considerable proportion of the mothers at any given time are below the voting age, while another large proportion have passed beyond the point of this objection. Then why disfranchise the half to whom your objection, even if valid as to any, does not apply at all; and most of these, too, the most mature and therefore the best qualified to vote of any of their sex?
But how much is there of this objection of want of time or physical strength to vote in its application to those women who are bearing and training the coming millions? .... The average mother will attend church at least forty times yearly from her cradle to her grave; and there is, besides, an infinity of other social, religious and industrial obligations which she performs because she is a married woman and a mother rather than for any other reason whatever. Yet it is proposed to deprive all women alike of an inestimable privilege for the reason that on any given day of election perhaps one woman in twenty of voting age may not be able to teach the polls. ....
When one thinks of the innumerable and trifling causes which keep many of the best of men and the strongest opponents of woman suffrage from the polls upon important occasions, it is difficult to be tolerant of the objection that woman by reason of motherhood has no time to vote. ....
It is urged that woman does not desire the privilege. If the right ​exist at all it is an individual right, and not one which belongs to a class or to the sex as such. Yet men tell us that they will vote to give the suffrage to women whenever the majority of women desire it. What would we say if it were seriously proposed to recall the suffrage from all colored or from all white men because a majority of either class should decline or for any cause fail to vote? If one or many choose not to claim their right it is no argument for depriving me of mine or one woman of hers. There are many reasons why some women declare themselves opposed to the extension of suffrage to their sex. Some well-fed and pampered, without serious experiences in life, are incapable of comprehending the subject at all. Vast numbers, who secretly and earnestly desire it, from the long habit of deference to the wishes of the other sex upon whom they are so entirely dependent, and knowing the hostility of their "protectors" to it, conceal their real sentiments. The "lord" of the family referring this question to his wife, who has heard him sneer or worse than sneer at suffragists for half a lifetime, ought not expect an answer which she knows will subject her to his censure and ridicule. It is like the old appeal of the master to his slave to know if he would like to be free. Full well did the wise and wary slave know that happiness depended upon declaring contentment with his lot). $e.
We are told that husband and wife will disagree and thus the suffrage will destroy the family and ruin society. If a married couple will quarrel at all, they will find the occasion, and it would be fortunate indeed if their contention might concern important affairs. There is no peace in the family save where love is, and the same spirit which enables husband and wife to enforce the toleration act between themselves in religious matters will keep the peace between them in political discussions. At all events this argument is unworthy of notice unless we are to push it to its logical conclusion, and, for the sake of peace in the family, to prohibit woman absolutely the exercise of free speech and action. Men live with their countrymen and yet disagree with them in politics, religion and ten thousand of the affairs of life, as often the trifling as the important. What harm, then, if woman be allowed her thought and vote upon the tariff, education, temperance, peace, war, and whatsoever else the suffrage decides.
We are told that no government of which we have authentic history ever gave to women a share in the sovereignty. This is not true, for the annals of monarchies and despotisms have been rendered illustrious by queens of surpassing brilliance and power. But even if it be true that no nation ever enfranchised woman—even so until within one hundred years universal or even general suffrage was unknown among men.
Has the millennium yet dawned? Is all progress at an end? If that which is should therefore remain, why abolish the slavery of men?
We are informed that woman does not vote when she has the opportunity. Wherever she has the unrestricted right she exer​cises it. The records of Wyoming and Washington demonstrate this fact.
Mr. Blair then quoted the statistics embodied in the report of the committee, showing the slow but sure progress of the enfranchisement of women, and concluded:
It is sometimes urged against this movement for the submission of a resolution for a National Constitutional Amendment that women should go to the States and fight it out there. But we did not send the colored man to the States. No other amendment touching the general national interest has been left to be fought out by individual action in the separate States. ....
We only ask for woman an opportunity to bring her suit in the great court for the amendment of fundamental law. It is impossible for any right mind to escape the impression of solemn responsibility which attaches to our decision. Ridicule and wit of whatever quality are here as much out of place as in the debates upon the Declaration of Independence. We are affirming or denying the right of petition which by all law belongs as much to women as to men. ....
Let us by our action to-day indorse, if we do not initiate, a movement which, in the development of our race, shall guarantee liberty to all without distinction of sex, even as our glorious Constitution already grants the suffrage to every male citizen without distinction of color or race.
On January 25, 1887, Senator Blair again called up his resolution and a spirited debate followed. Senators Joseph E. Brown (Ga.) and George G. Vest (Mo.) represented the negative; Henry W. Blair (N. H.) and Joseph N. Dolph (Ore.) the affirmative. Senator Brown opened the discussion by presenting, word for word, the report signed by Senator Francis M. Cockrell (Mo.) and himself in 1884. It embodied the stock objections to woman suffrage, practically all in fact which are ever made, and was in part as follows:
Mr. President, the joint resolution introduced by my friend, the ​Senator from New Hampshire, proposing an amendment to the Constitution of the United States, conferring the right to vote upon the women of the United States, is one of paramount importance, as it involves great questions far-reaching in their tendency, which seriously affect the very pillars of our social fabric, which involve the peace and harmony of society, the unity of the family, and much of the future success of our Government. ....
I believe that the Creator intended that the sphere of the males and females of our race should be different, and that their duties and obligations, while they differ materially, are equally important and equally honorable, and that each sex is equally well qualified by natural endowments for the discharge of the important duties which pertain to each, and that each sex is equally competent to discharge those duties.
We find an abundance of evidence, both in the works of nature and in the Divine revelation, to establish the fact that the family properly regulated is the foundation and pillar of society, and is the most important of any other human institution. In the Divine economy it is provided that the man shall be the head of the family, and shall take upon himself the solemn obligation of providing for and protecting the family.
Man, by reason of his physical strength, and his other endowments and faculties, is qualified for the discharge of those duties that require strength and ability to combat with the sterner realities and difficulties of life. It is not only his duty to provide for and protect the family, but as a member of the community it is also his duty to discharge the laborious and responsible obligations which the family owe to the State, and which obligations must be discharged by the head of the family, until the male members have grown up to manhood and are able to aid in the discharge of those obligations, when it becomes their duty each in turn to take charge of and rear a family, for which he is responsible.
Among other duties which the head of the family owes to the State is military duty in time of war, which he, when able-bodied, is able to discharge and which the female members of the family are unable to discharge.
He is also under obligation to discharge jury duty, and by himself or his representatives to perform his part of the labor necessary to construct and keep in order roads, bridges, streets and all grades of public highways. And in this progressive age upon the male sex is devolved the duty of constructing and operating our railroads, and the engines and other rolling stock with which they are operated; of building, equipping and launching shipping and other water craft of every character necessary for the transportation of passengers and freight upon our rivers, our lakes, and upon the high seas.
​The labor in our fields, sowing, cultivating and reaping crops must be discharged mainly by the male sex, as the female sex, for want of physical strength, are generally unable to discharge these duties. As it is the duty of the male sex to perform the obligations to the State, to society and to the family, already mentioned, with numerous others that might be enumerated, it is also their duty to aid in the government of the State, which is simply a great aggregation of families. Society can not be preserved nor can the people be prosperous without good government. The government of our country is a government of the people, and it becomes necessary that the class of people upon whom the responsibility rests should assemble together and consider and discuss the great questions of governmental policy which from time to time are presented for their decision.
This often requires the assembling of caucuses in the night time, as well as public assemblages in the daytime. It is a laborious task, for which the male sex is infinitely better fitted than the female sex; and after proper consideration and discussion of the measures that may divide the country from time to time, the duty devolves upon those who are responsible for the government, at times and places to be fixed by law, to meet and by ballot to decide the great questions of government upon which the prosperity of the country depends.
These are some of the active and sterner duties of life to which the male sex is by nature better fitted than the female sex. If in carrying out the policy of the State on great measures adjudged vital such policy should lead to war, either foreign or domestic, it would seem to follow very naturally that those who have been responsible for the management of the State should be the parties to take the hazards and hardships of the struggle. Here again man is better fitted by nature for the discharge of the duty—woman is unfit for it.
On the other hand, the Creator has assigned to woman very laborious and responsible duties, by no means less important than those imposed upon the male sex, though entirely different in their character. In the family she is a queen. She alone is fitted for the discharge of the sacred trust of wife and the endearing relation of mother. While the man is contending with the sterner duties of life, the whole time of the noble, affectionate and true woman is required in the discharge of the delicate and difficult duties assigned her in the family circle, in her church relations and in the society where her lot is cast. When the husband returns home weary and worn in the discharge of the difficult and laborious tasks assigned him, he finds in the good wife solace and consolation which is nowhere else afforded.
But a still more important duty devolves upon the mother. After ​having brought into existence the offspring of the nuptial union, the children are dependent upon the mother as they are not upon any other human being. The trust is a most sacred, most responsible and most important one. She molds the character. She educates the heart as well as the intellect, and she prepares the future man, now the boy, for honor or dishonor. Upon the manner in which she discharges her duty depends the fact whether he shall in future be a useful citizen or a burden to society. She inculcates lessons of patriotism, manliness, religion and virtue, fitting the man by reason of his training to be an ornament to society, or dooming him by her neglect to a life of dishonor and shame. Society acts unwisely, when it imposes upon her the duties that by common consent have always been assigned to the stronger and sterner sex, and the discharge of which causes her to neglect those sacred and all important duties to her children and to the society of which they are members.
In the church, by her piety, her charity and her Christian purity, she not only aids society by a proper training of her own children, but the children of others, whom she encourages to come to the sacred altar. In the Sunday-school room the good woman is a princess and she exerts an influence which purifies and ennobles society. In the sick room and among the humble, the poor and the suffering the good woman is an angel of light. ....
If the wife and the mother is required to leave the sacred precincts of home and to attempt to do military duty when the State is in peril; or if she is to be required to leave her home from day to day in attendance upon the court as a juror, and to be shut up in the jury room from night to night with men who are strangers, while a question of life or property is being discussed; if she is to attend political meetings, take part in political discussions and mingle with the male sex at political gatherings; if she is to become an active politician; if she is to attend political caucuses at late hours of the night; if she is to take part in all the unsavory work that may be deemed necessary for the triumph of her party; and if on election day she is to leave her home and go upon the streets electioneering for votes for the candidates who receive her support, and mingling among the crowds of men who gather round the polls, she is to press her way through them to the precinct and deposit her ballot; if she is to take part in the corporate struggles of the city or town in which she resides, attend to the duties of his honor, the mayor, the councilman, or of policeman, to say nothing of the many other like obligations which are disagreeable (!) even to the male sex, how is she, with all these heavy duties of citizen, politician and officeholder resting upon her shoulders, to attend to. the more sacred, delicate, refining trust to which we have already referred, and for which she is peculiarly fitted by nature? Who is to ​care for and train the children while she is absent in the discharge of these masculine duties?
But it has been said that the present law is unjust to woman; that she is often required to pay tax on the property she holds without being permitted to take part in framing or administering the laws by which her property is governed, and that she is taxed without representation. That is a great mistake. It may be very doubtful whether the male or female sex in the present state of things has more influence in the administration of the affairs of the government and the enactment of the laws by which we are governed.
While the woman does not discharge military duty, nor does she attend courts and serve on juries, nor does she labor on the public streets, bridges or highways, nor does she engage actively and publicly in the discussion of political affairs, nor does she enter the crowded precincts of the ballot-box to deposit her suffrage, still the intelligent, cultivated, noble woman is a power behind the throne. All her influence is in favor of morality, justice and fair dealing, all her efforts and her counsel are in favor of good government, wise and wholesome regulations and a faithful administration of the laws. ....
It would be a gratification, and we are always glad to see the ladies gratified, to many who have espoused the cause of woman suffrage if they could take active part in political affairs and go to the polls and cast their votes alongside the male sex; but while this would be a gratification to a large number of very worthy and excellent ladies who take a different view of the question from that which we entertain, we feel that it would be a great cruelty to a much larger number of the cultivated, refined, delicate and lovely women of this country who seek no such distinction, who would enjoy no such privilege, who would with womanlike delicacy shrink from the discharge of any such obligation, and who would sincerely regret that what they consider the folly of the State had imposed upon them any such unpleasant duties. But should female suffrage be once established it would become an imperative necessity that the very large class, indeed much the largest class, of the women of this country of the character last described should yield, contrary to their inclinations and wishes, to the necessity which would compel them to engage in political strife.
We apprehend no one who has properly considered this question will doubt, if female suffrage should be established, that the more ignorant and less refined portions of the female population, to say nothing of the baser class of females, laying aside feminine delicacy and disregarding the sacred duties devolving upon them, to which ​we have already referred, would rush to the polls and take pleasure in the crowded association which the situation would compel, of the two sexes in political meetings and at the ballot-box. ....
It is now a problem which perplexes the brain of the ablest statesmen to determine how we will best preserve our republican system as against the demoralizing influence of the large class of our present citizens and voters who by reason of their illiteracy are unable to read or write the ballot they cast. If our colored population, who were so recently slaves that even the males who are voters have had but little opportunity to educate themselves or to be educated, whose ignorance is now exciting the liveliest interest of our statesmen, are causes of serious apprehension, what is to be said in favor of adding to the voting population all the females of that race, who, on account of the situation in which they have been placed, have had much less opportunity to be educated than even the males of their own race?
It may be said that their votes could be offset by the ballots of the educated and refined ladies of the white race in the same section; but who does not know that the ignorant female voters would be at the polls en masse, while the refined and educated, shrinking from public contact on such occasions, would remain at home and attend to their domestic and other important duties? Are we ready to expose the country to the demoralization, and our institutions to the strain, which would be placed upon them, for the gratification of a minority of the virtuous and good of our female population at the expense of the mortification of a very large majority of the same sex?
It has been frequently urged that the ballot is necessary to women to enable them to protect themselves in securing occupations, and to enable them to realize the same compensation for the like labor which is received by men. This argument is plausible, but upon a closer examination it will be found to possess but little real force. The price of labor is and must continue to be governed by the law of supply and demand, and the person who has the most physical strength to labor, and the most pursuits requiring such strength open for employment, will always command the higher prices.
Ladies make excellent teachers in public schools; many of them are every way the equals of their male competitors, and still they secure less wages than males. The reason is obvious. The number of ladies who offer themselves as teachers is much larger than the number of males who are willing to teach. The larger number of females offer to teach because other occupations are not open to them. The smaller number of males offer to teach because other more profitable occupations are open to most males who are competent to teach. ....
The ballot can not impart to the female physical strength which ​she does not possess, nor can it open to her pursuits which she does not have physical ability to engage in; and as long as she lacks the physical strength to compete with men in the different departments of labor, there will be more competition in her department, and she must necessarily receive less wages.
But it is claimed again that females should have the ballot as a protection against the tyranny of bad husbands. This is also delusive. If the husband is brutal, arbitrary or tyrannical, and tyrannizes over her at home, the ballot in her hands would be no protection against such injustice, but the husband who compelled her to conform to his wishes in other respects would also compel her to use the ballot, if she possessed it, as he might please to dictate. The ballot would, therefore, be of no assistance to the wife in such case, nor could it heal family strifes or dissensions. On the contrary, one of the gravest objections to placing the ballot in the hands of the female sex is that it would promote unhappiness and dissensions in the family circle. There should be unity and harmony in the family. ....
When woman becomes a voter she will be more or less of a politician, and will form political alliances or unite with political parties which will frequently be antagonistic to those to which her husband belongs. This will introduce into the family circle new elements of disagreement and discord which will frequently end in unhappy divisions, if not in separation and divorce. This must frequently occur when she becomes an active politician, identified with a party which is distasteful to her husband. On the other hand, if she unites with her husband in party associations and votes with him on all occasions so as not to disturb the harmony and happiness of the family, then the ballot is of no service, as it simply duplicates the vote of the male on each side of the question and leaves the result the same. ....
It may be said, however, that there is a class of young ladies who do not choose to marry, and who select professions or avocations and follow them for a livelihood. This is true, but this class, compared with the number who unite in matrimony with the husbands of their choice, is comparatively very small, and it is the duty of society to encourage the increase of marriages rather than of celibacy. If the larger number of females select pursuits or professions which require them to decline marriage, society to that extent is deprived of the advantage resulting from the increase of population by marriage.
It is said by those who have examined the question closely that the largest number of divorces is now found in the communities where the advocates of female suffrage are most numerous, and where the individuality of woman as related to her husband, which such a doctrine inculcates, is increased to the greatest extent. ....
Senator Brown then introduced a long quotation from the "Chimney-Corner," covering so exactly the ground of his speech and in so nearly the same language as to suggest, if not collusion, at least "two souls with but a single thought," which he thus emphasized in closing:
He was followed by Senator Dolph, who said:
Fortunately for the perpetuity of our institutions and the prosperity of the people, the Federal Constitution contains a provision for its own amendment. The framers of that instrument foresaw that time and experience, the growth of the country and the consequent expansion of the Government, would develop the necessity for changes in it. Under this provision, at the first session of the First Congress, ten amendments were submitted to the Legislatures of the several States, in due time ratified by the constitutional number, and thus became a part of the Constitution. Since then there have been added to the Constitution by the same process five different articles. To secure an amendment requires the concurrent action of two-thirds of both branches of Congress and the affirmative action of three-fourths of the States. The question as to whether this resolution shall be submitted to the Legislatures for ratification does not involve the right or policy of the proposed amendment. ....
​No question in this country has been more ably discussed than this has been by the women themselves. I do not think a single objection which is made to woman suffrage is tenable. No one will contend but that women have sufficient capacity to vote intelligently. Sacred and profane history is full of the records of great deeds by women. They have ruled kingdoms, and, my friend from Georgia to the contrary notwithstanding, they have commanded armies. They have excelled in statecraft, they have shone in literature, and, rising superior to their environments and breaking the shackles with which custom and tyranny have bound them, they have stood side by side with men in the fields of the arts and the sciences.
If it were a fact that woman is intellectually inferior to man, which I do not admit, still that would be no reason why she should not be permitted to participate in the formation and control of the government to which she owes allegiance. If we are to have as a test for the exercise of the right of suffrage a qualification based upon. intelligence, let it be applied to women and to men alike. If it be admitted that suffrage is a right, that is the end of controversy; there can no longer be any argument made against woman suffrage; because, if it is her right, then, if there were but one poor woman in all the United States demanding the right it would be tyranny to refuse the demand.
But our opponents say that suffrage is not a right; that it is a matter of grace only; that it is a privilege which is conferred upon or withheld from individual members of society by society at pleasure. Society as here used means man's government, and the proposition assumes that men have a right to institute and control governments for themselves and for women. I admit that in the governments of the world, past and present, men as a rule have assumed to be the ruling class; that they have instituted governments from participation in which they have excluded women; that they have made laws for themselves and for women, and have themselves administered them. But, that the provisions conferring or regulating suffrage, in the constitutions and laws of governments so constituted, have determined the question of the vight of suffrage, can not be maintained.
Let us suppose, if we can, a community separated from all others —having no organized government, owing no allegiance to any existing governments, without any knowledge of the character of those present or past, so that when they come to form one for themselves they can do so free from the bias or prejudice of custom or education—a community composed of an equal number of men and women, having equal property rights to be defined and to be protected by law. When such community came to institute a government—and it would have an undoubted right to institute one for itself, and the instinct of self-preservation would soon lead it to do so—will my friend from Georgia tell me by what right, human or divine, the male portion could exclude the female portion, equal in number and having equal property rights, from participation in the formation of such government and in the enactment of its laws? ​I understand that the Senator, if he would answer, would say that he believes the author of our existence, the ruler of the universe, has given different spheres to man and woman. Admit that; and still neither in nature nor in the revealed will of God do I find anything to lead me to believe that the Creator did not intend that a woman should exercise the right of self-government.
During the consideration by this body, at the last session, of the bill to admit Washington Territory into the Union, referring to the fact that in that Territory woman already had been enfranchised, I briefly submitted my views on this subject, which I now ask the Secretary to read.
The Secretary read as follows:" .... I do not believe the proposition so often asserted that suffrage is a political privilege only, and not a natural right. It is regulated by the constitution and laws of a State, I grant, but it needs no argument to show that a constitution and laws adopted and enacted by a fragment only of the whole body of the people, but binding alike on all, are a usurpation of the powers of government.
"Government is but organized society. Whatever its form, it has its origin in the necessities of mankind and is indispensable for the maintenance of civilized society. It is essential to every government that it should represent the supreme power of the State, and be capable of subjecting the will of its individual citizens to its authority. Such a government can derive its just powers only from the consent of the governed, and can be established only under a fundamental law which is self-imposed. Every person of suitable age and discretion who is to be subject to such a government has, in my judgment, a natural right to participate in its formation. It is a significant fact that, should Congress pass this bill and authorize the people of Washington Territory to frame a State constitution and organize a State government, the fundamental law of the State would be made by all the citizens who were to be subject to it, and not by one-half of them. And we shall witness the spectacle of a State government founded in accordance with the principles of equality, and have a State at last with a truly republican form of government.
"The fathers of the republic enunciated the doctrine '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.' It is strange that any one in this enlightened age should be found to contend that this declaration is true only of men, and that a man is endowed by his Creator with inalienable rights not possessed by a woman. The lamented Lincoln immortalized the expression that ours is a government 'of the people, by the people and for the people,' and yet it is far from that. There can be no government by the people where one-half of them are allowed no voice in its organization and control. I regard the struggle going on in this country and elsewhere for the enfranchisement ​of women as but a continuation of the great struggle for human liberty which, from the earliest dawn of authentic history, has convulsed nations, rent kingdoms and drenched battlefields with human blood. I look upon the victories which have been achieved in the cause of woman's enfranchisement in Washington Territory and elsewhere, as the crowning victories of all which have been won in the long-continued, still-continuing contest between liberty and oppression, and as destined to exert a greater influence upon the human race than any achieved upon the battlefield in ancient or modern times."
Mr. President, the movement for woman suffrage has passed the stage of ridicule. The pending joint resolution may not pass during this Congress, but the time is not far distant when in every State of the Union and in every Territory women will be admitted to an equal voice in the government, and that will be done whether the Federal Constitution is amended or not. ....
No measure involving such radical changes in our institutions and fraught with so great consequences to this country and to humanity has made such progress as the movement for woman suffrage. Denunciation will not much longer answer for arguments by the opponents of this measure. The portrayal of the evils to flow from woman suffrage such as we have heard pictured to-day by the Senator from Georgia, the loss of harmony between husband and wife and the consequent instability of the marriage relation, the neglect of husbands and children by wives and mothers for the performance of their political duties, in short the incapacitating of women for wives and mothers and companions, will not much longer serve to frighten the timid. Proof is better than theory. The experiment has been made and the predicted evils to flow from it have not followed. On the contrary, if we can believe the almost universal testimony, wherever it has been tried it has been followed by the most beneficial results.
In Washington Territory, since woman was enfranchised, there have been two elections. At the first there were 8,368 votes cast by women out of a total vote of about 34,000. At the second election, which was held in November last, out of 48,000 votes, 12,000 were cast by women.
Senator James B. Eustis (La.) inquired whether, if the right of suffrage were conferred, women ought to be required to serve on juries. To this Senator Dolph replied: "I can answer that very readily. It does not necessarily follow that because a woman is permitted to vote and thus have a voice in making the laws by which she is to be governed and by which her property rights are to be determined, she must perform such duty as service upon a jury. But I will inform the Senator that in Washington Territory she does serve upon juries, and with great satisfaction to the judges of the courts and to all parties who desire to see an honest and efficient administration of law." The following colloquy then ensued:
Mr. Dolph: I intended to say before I reached this point of being interrogated that I not only do not believe that there is a single argument against woman suffrage which is tenable, but also that there is not a single one which is really worthy of any serious consideration. The Senator from Louisiana is a lawyer, and he knows very well that a mother with a nursing infant, that fact being made known to the court, would be excused. He knows himself, and he has seen it done a hundred times, that for trivial excuses compared to that, men have been excused from service on a jury.
Mr. Eustis: I will ask the Senator whether he knows that under the laws of Washington Territory this is a legal excuse from serving on a jury?
Mr. Dolph: I am not prepared to state that it is; but there is no question in the world but that any Judge, this fact being made known, would excuse a woman from attendance upon a jury. No special authority would be required. I will state further that I have not learned that there has been any serious objection on the part of any woman summoned for jury service in that Territory to performing that duty. I have not learned that it has worked to the disadvantage of any family, but I do know that the judges of the courts have taken especial pains to commend the women who have been called to serve upon juries for the manner in which they have discharged their duty.
I wish to say further that there is no connection whatever between ​jury service and the right of suffrage. The question as to who shall perform jury service, who shall perform military service, who shall perform civil official duty, is certainly a matter to be regulated by the community itself; but the question of the right to participate in the formation of a government which controls the life, the property and the destinies of its citizens, I contend is one which goes back of these mere regulations for the protection of property and the punishment of offenses under the laws. It is a matter of right which it is a tyranny to refuse to any citizen demanding it.
Senator Vest then entered into a long and elaborate discussion of the resolution, in which he said:
The Senator who spoke last on this question refers to the successful experiment in regard to woman suffrage in the Territories of Wyoming and Washington. It is not upon the plains of the sparsely-settled Territories of the West that woman suffrage can be tested. Suffrage in the rural districts and sparsely-settled regions of this country must from the very nature of things remain pure when corrupt everywhere else. The danger of corrupt suffrage is in the cities, and those masses of population to which civilization tends everywhere in all history. Wyoming Territory! Washington Territory! Where are their large cities? Where are the localities in which the strain upon popular government must come?
The Senator from New Hampshire, who is so conspicuous in this movement, appalled the country some months since by his ghastly array of illiteracy in the Southern States. .... He proposes to give the negro women of the South this right of suffrage, utterly unprepared as they are for it. In a convention some two-years ​and-a-half ago in the city of Louisville an intelligent negro from the South said the negro men could not vote the Democratic ticket because the women would not live with them if they did. The negro men go out in the hotels and upon the railroad cars; they go to the cities and by attrition they wear away the prejudice of race; but the women remain at home, and their emotional natures aggregate and compound the race-prejudice, and when suffrage is given them what must be the result?
Mr. President, it is not my purpose to speak of the inconveniences, for they are nothing more, of woman suffrage. I trust that as a gentleman I respect the feelings of the ladies and their advocates. I am not here to ridicule. My purpose only is to use legitimate argument as to a movement which commands respectful consideration if for no other reason than because it comes from women. But it is impossible to divest ourselves of a certain degree of sentiment when considering this question. I pity the man who can consider any question affecting the influence of woman with the cold, dry logic of business. What man can, without aversion, turn from the blessed memory of that dear old grandmother, or the gentle words and caressing hand of that blessed mother gone to the unknown world, to face in its stead the idea of a female justice of the peace or township constable? For my part I want when I go to my home—when I turn from the arena where man contends with man for what we call the prizes of this paltry world—I want to go back, not to be received in the masculine embrace of some female ward politician, but to the earnest, loving look and touch of a true woman. I want to go back to the jurisdiction of the wife, the mother; and instead of a lecture upon finance or the tariff or the construction of the Constitution, I want those blessed, loving details of domestic life and domestic love.
I have said I would not speak of the inconveniences to arise from woman suffrage—when the mother is called upon to decide as a juryman or jurywoman rights of property or rights of life, whilst her baby is "mewling and puking" in solitary confinement at home. There are other considerations more important, and one of them to my mind is insuperable. I speak now respecting women as a sex. I believe that they are better than men, but I do not believe they are adapted to the political work of this world. I do not believe that the Great Intelligence ever intended them to invade the sphere of work given to men, tearing down and destroying all the best influences for which God has intended them.
The great evil in this country to-day is in emotional suffrage. The great danger to-day is in excitable suffrage. If the voters of this country could think always coolly, and if they could deliberate, if they could go by judgment and not by passion, our institutions would survive forever, eternal as the foundations of the continent itself; but massed together, subject to the excitement of mobs and ​of these terrible political contests that come upon us from year to year under the autonomy of our government, what would be the result if suffrage were given to the women of the United States?
Women are essentially emotional. It is no disparagement to them they are so. It is no more insulting to say that women are emotional than to say that they are delicately constructed physically and unfitted to become soldiers or workmen under the sterner, harder pursuits of life. What we want in this country is to avoid emotional suffrage, and what we need is to put more logic into public affairs and less feeling.
There are spheres in which feeling should be paramount. There are kingdoms in which the heart should reign supreme. That kingdom belongs to woman, the realm of sentiment, the realm of love, the realm of the gentler and holier and kindlier attributes that make the name of wife; mother and sister next to that of God himself.
I would not, and I say it deliberately, degrade woman by giving her the right of suffrage. I mean the word in its full signification, because I believe that woman as she is today, the queen of home and of hearts, is above the political collisions of this world, and should always be kept above them. ....
Sir, if it be said to us that this is a natural 'right belonging to women, I deny it. The right of suffrage is one to be determined by expediency and by policy, and given by the State to whom it pleases. It is not a natural right; it is a right that comes from the State.
It is claimed that if the suffrage be given to women it is to protect them. Protect them from whom? The brute that would invade their rights would coerce the suffrage of his wife or sister or mother as he would wring from her the hard earnings of her toil to gratify his own beastly appetites and passions.
Senator Vest then presented a list of two hundred men from Massachusetts, among them forty-five clergymen, remonstrating against any further extension of suffrage to women. He next presented the old-time letter of Mrs. Clara T. Leonard of that ​State protesting against the enfranchisement of women. Senator Hoar called attention to the fact that the writer herself was an office-holder, a member of the State Board of Lunacy and Charity, to which Senator Vest answered:
Oh, no, Mr. President, this will not do. If we are to tear down all the blessed traditions, if we are to desolate our homes and firesides, if we are to unsex our mothers and wives and sisters and turn our blessed temples of domestic peace into ward political-assembly rooms, pass this joint resolution. But for one I thank God that I am so old-fashioned that I would not give one memory of my grandmother or of my mother for all the arguments that could be piled, Pelion upon Ossa, in favor of this political monstrosity.
I now present a pamphlet sent to me by a lady. I do not know whether she be wife or mother. She signs this pamphlet as Adeline D. T. Whitney. I have read it twice, and read it to pure and gentle and intellectual women. I shall not read it today for my strength does not suffice. .... There is not one impure, unintellectual aspiration or thought throughout the whole of it. Would to God that I knew her, that I could thank ber on behalf of the society and politics of the United States for This production. She says to her own sex: "After all, men work for women; or, if they think they do not, it would leave them but sorry satisfaction to abandon them to such existence as they could arrange without us."
​This pamphlet of over five thousand words which began, “What is the law of woman-life? What was she made woman for, and not man ?”—might be described as the apotheosis of the sentimental effusions of Senators Brown and Vest.
During the discussion Senator George F. Hoar (Mass.) said:
He says that the women: who ask this change in our political organization are not simply seeking to be put upon school boards and upon boards of health and charity and to fulfil all the large number of duties of a political nature for which he must confess they are fit, but he says they will want to be President of the United States, and Senators and marshals and sheriffs, and that seems to him supremely ridiculous. Now I do not understand that this is the proposition. What they want is simply to be eligible to such public duty as a majority of their fellow-citizens may think they are fitted for. The most of the public duties in this country do not require robust, physical health, or exposure to what is base or unhealthy; and when those duties are imposed upon anybody it will be only upon such persons as are fit for them.
My honorable friend spoke of the French revolution and the horrors in which the women of Paris took part, and from that he would argue that American wives and mothers and sisters are not fit for the calm and temperate management of our American republican life. His argument would require him by the same logic to agree that republicanism itself is not fit for human society. The argument is against popular government, whether by men or women, and the Senator only applies to this new phase of the claim of equal rights what his predecessors would have argued against the rights which men now enjoy.
Senator Blair closed the debate by saying in part:
The opposition had presented three documents, each representing the views of one woman, and one of these anonymous. Senator Blair presented a petition for the suffrage from the Woman's Christian Temperance Union of 200,000 members, signed by Miss Frances E. Willard, president, and the entire official board. This was accompanied by a strong personal appeal from a number of distinguished women, and hundreds of thousands of petitions had been previously sent. The Senator also received permission to have printed in the Congressional Record the arguments made by the representatives of the suffrage movement before the Senate committee in 1880 and 1884.
A vote was then taken on the resolution to submit to the State Legislatures an amendment to the Federal Constitution forbidding the disfranchisement of United States citizens on account of sex, which resulted in 16 yeas, 34 nays, 26 absent. Of the ​absentees Senators Chace, Dawes, Plumb and Stanford announced that they would have voted "yea;" Jones of Arkansas and Butler that they would have voted "nay."
Thus on January 25, 1887, occurred the first and only discussion and vote in the United States Senate on the submission of an amendment to the Federal Constitution which should forbid disfranchisement on account of sex, that took place up to the end of the nineteenth century.
* ↑ The only time the direct question of woman suffrage ever had been discussed and voted on in the U. S. Senate was in December, 1866, on the Bill to Regulate the Franchise for the District of Columbia History of Woman Suffrage, Vol. II, p. 102; and in May, 1874, on the Bill to Establish the Territory of Pembina the same, p. 545; but these were entirely distinct from the submission of a constitutional amendment.
* ↑ Extended space is accorded this discussion, as it might reasonably be expected that on the floor of the United States Senate would be made the most exhaustive arguments possible on both sides of this important question.
* ↑ This report had been presented Mar. 28, 1884, by Senators T. W. Palmer, H. W. Blair, E. G. Lapham and H. B. Anthony.
* ↑ The italics are made by the editors of the History.
* ↑ Senator Brown did not enter the army during the Civil War.
* ↑ As a lawyer Senator Brown was always exempt from jury service.
* ↑ Senator Brown had this done by his representatives, as any woman could do.
* ↑ As every private family urgently needs the man and the woman, why are both not needed in this "great aggregation?"
* ↑ Do women have no hardships or hazards in time of war?
* ↑ If her duties are just as laborious, responsible and important as man's, do they not entitle her to a voice in the Government?
* ↑ Since this tremendous responsibility is placed upon woman, why should she not have a voice in the conditions which surround these children outside the home? Why should man alone determine these conditions which often counteract all the mother's training?
* ↑ Senator Brown assumes that all women are wives and the mothers of young children, and that the mother's sense of duty would not hold her to the care of her children if she had a chance to go into politics.
* ↑ Would any man be willing to exchange his influence for that of a woman in the affairs of government?
* ↑ This would seem to be the very influence which ought to be enforced by a vote.
* ↑ In readjusting the qualifications for the suffrage the Southern States have been very careful to secure the right to all the illiterate white men.
* ↑ Senator Brown says in the preceding paragraph that the "delicate and lovely women" would not remain at home but would consider it an imperative duty to go to the polls.
* ↑ Is it because women lack physical strength that they are not allowed to practice law in Georgia or to act as notaries public or to fill any office, even that of school trustee, and that no woman is permitted to enter the State University? The men should at least give their "queens" and "princesses" and "angels" an education.
* ↑ Yes, if the husband has to enforce it with a club. This paragraph does not tally with the one in the early part of the Senator's speech where all women were placed on a throne, and all men were declared to be their natural protectors.
* ↑ The picture of family life in Georgia is not alluring, but the Senator takes small account of the woman who does not happen to possess a "male," or rather to be possessed by one.
* ↑ Therefore the wife should not be allowed any individuality. Statistics, however, from the States where women do vote prove exactly the opposite of this assertion in regard to divorce.
* ↑ For account of the unconstitutional disfranchisement of the women of Washington Territory by its Supreme Court, see chapter on that State.
* ↑ This does not seem to apply to negro suffrage in the Southern States.
* ↑ One hearing Senator Brown's blood-curdling descriptions would think they were more than "inconveniences."
* ↑ Observe that Senator Vest's entire argument against woman suffrage is based wholly on sentiment and emotion and is entirely devoid of logic.
* ↑ The Senator meant that it is a right which comes from the men of the State, from one-half of its people.
* ↑ Because of a few such brutes millions of women must be deprived of the suffrage. If women had some control over the conditions which tend to make men brutes, might the number not be lessened? The Senator ignores entirely the secret ballot which would prevent the aforesaid brutes from knowing how the women voted.
* ↑ In the preceding paragraph she did not seem to be on a pedestal.
* ↑ The advocates of woman suffrage have repeatedly had bills in the various Legislatures asking that women might be appointed on the boards of all State institutions, and as physicians in all where women and children are placed, but up to the present day not one woman is allowed this privilege in Senator Vest's own State of Missouri.
* ↑ This does not accord with the argument of Senator Brown that man must do the voting for the family on account of his superior physical strength.
* ↑ These were Susan B. Anthony, Nancy R. Allen, Lillie Devereux Blake, Lucinda B. Chandler, Abigail Scott Duniway, Helen M. Gougar, Mary Seymour Howell, Elizabeth Boynton Harbert, Dr. Clemence S. Lozier, Julia Smith Parker, Caroline Gilkey Rogers, Elizabeth Lyle Saxon, May Wright Sewall, Mary A. Stuart, Sara Andrews Spencer, Harriette R. Shattuck, Zerelda G. Wallace, Sarah E. Wall—nearly all of national reputation.
* ↑ Yeas: Blair, N. H.; Bowen, Col.; Cheney, N. H.; Conger, Mich.; Cullom, Ills.; Dolph, Ore.; Farwell, Ill.; Hoar, Mass.; Manderson, Neb.; Mitchell, Ore.; Mitchell, Penn.; Palmer, Mich.; Platt, Conn.; Sherman, O.; Teller, Col.; Wilson, Iowa—16.