Belmont chronicle. [volume] (St. Clairsville, Ohio) 1855-1973, 1867-10-10
Equal Rights for Women.
A Speech by George William Curtis,
in the Constitutional Convention
of New York, at the City Of
Albany, July 10, 1867.


Albany, July 10, 1867.
The Convention resolved itself into the
Committee Of the Whole on the report of
the Committee on the Right of Suffrage
and the Qualifications to Hold Office,
Mr.. Alvord, of Onondaga, in the Chair.
The Chairman announced the question
to be on the amendment offered by the
gentleman from Cayuga (Mr. Dwight.
Mr.. Curtis offered the following amend
ment:
"In the first section, strike out the
word male, and wherever in that sec
ton the word he occurs, add or she,
and wherever the word his occurs, add
or her.
Mr.. CuRTIs-In proposing change
SO new to our political practice, but SO
harmonious with the spirit and prin-
ciples of our government, 1t is only just
that l should attempt to show that it is
neither repugnant to reason nor hurt
full to the State. Yet l confess some
embarrassment, for while the essential
reason of the proposition seems to me
to be clearly defined, the objection to
it is vague and shadowy. From the
formal opening of the general discus
sion of the question in this country, by
the Convention at Seneca Falls, in 1S4S,
down to the present moment, the oppo-
sition to the suggestion, so far as l am
acquainted with it, has been only the
repetition of traditional prejudice, or
the protest of mere sentimentality, and
to cope with these is like wrestling with
malaria or arguing with the east wind.
/ do not know, indeed, why the Com
mittee have changed the phrase male
inhabitant or citizen, which is uniformly
used in a constitutional clause limiting
the elective franchise. Under the cir
cumstances, the word "man " is obscure
and undoubtedly includes women as
much as the word "mankind. But the
intention of the clause is evident, and
the report of the Committee makes it in
disputable. Had they been willing to
say directly what they say indirectly,
the eighth line, and what follows, would
read: provided that idiots, lunatics,
and persons under guardianship, felons,
women, and persons convicted of bribery,
ETC., shall not be entitled to vote" In
their report the committee omit to tell
us why they class the women of New
York with idiots and criminals. They
assert, merely, that the general enfran-
chisement of women would be anovelty,
which is true of every step ofpolitical pro-
gress and is therefore presumption in
its favor, and they speak of it in aphrase
which is intended to stigmatize it as un-
womanly, which is simply an assump-
ton and q prejudice. i wish to know,
sir, and ask in the name of the politi-
cal justice and consistency of this State,
why it is that half of the adult popula-
ton, as vitally interested in good gov
ernment as the other half, who own
property manage Estates anc pay taxes
who discharge all the duties of good cit
capable, are absolutely deprived of polit
ical power, and classed with luna ties and
felons. The boy will become man and
a voter; the luhatic may emerge from the
cloud and resume his rights the idiot,
plastic under the tender hand of modern
science, may be moulded into the full
citizen; the criminal, whose hand still
drips with the blood of his country and
of liberty, may De pardOned and restored.
But no age, no wisdom, no peculiar fit
ness, no public service, no effort, no de-
sire can remove from women this enor-
nous and ndextraordinary disability. Upon
what reasonable grounds does it rest?-
Upon none whatever. 1t ia contrary to
natural Justice, to the acknowledged and
traditional principles of the American
government, and to the most enlighten-
ed political philosophy. The absolute
exclusion Of women from political power
in this State is simply usurpation. "1n
every age and country" says the histo-
rian Gibbon, nearly q hundred years
ago, "the wiser or at least the stronger of
the two sexes, has usurped the powers of
the State and confined the other to tbH
cares and pleasures Of domestic :. life."
1 have no wish to refine curiously
the origin of government. If any one
insists, with the honorable gentleman
from Broome, that there are no such
things as natural political rights, and
that no man is born voter, will not
now stop to argue with him; but as /
believe the honorable gentleman from
Broome is by profession physician and
surgeon, will suggest to him that If no
man is born q voter, so no man is born
a man-for every man is born baby
But he is born with the right of becom-
ing man without hindrance; and ask
the honorable gentleman, as an Ameri-
can citizen and political philosopher,
whether, if every man is not born
voter, he Is not born with the right of
becoming q voter upon equal terms with
of the phrase, which / find in the New
York Tribune of Monday, and have so
often found there: "The radical basis of
government is equal rights for all cit
1zens"
There Are, as I think we shall all adj
NIT, some kind of natural rights. This
Summer air that breathes benignant
around our nationalanniversary, isvocal
with the traditional eloquence with
which those rights were asserted by our
fathers. From all the burning words Of
the time quote those of Alexander Ham
ilton, of New York, in reply, as my hon
orable friend the Chairman OF the Com
mittee will remember to the Tory farm
er of Westchester: "Thesacred rights Of
mankind are not to be rummaged for
among old parchments or dusty records.
They are written as with sunbeam in
the whole volume of human nature by
the hand of the Divinity itself, and can
never be erased or obscured by mortal
power" In the next year, Thomas JEFF
ferson, of Virginia, summed up the po-
liticai faith Of our fathers in the Great
Declaration. Its words vibrate through
the history of those days. AS the Tyre
of Amphion raised the wallsof the city,
so they are the music which sing course
after course of the ascending structure of
American civilization into its place.