The new Northwest. [volume] (Portland, Or.) 1871-1887, 1872-04-05

York? The editor of the Tribune knows
the value OF votes, and If, honorable gen.
tlemen, you will give us 'Declaratory
law" forbidding the State to deny or
abridge our rights, there will be no need
OF arguments TO change the tone of his
Journals its columns will speedily glow
with demands for the protection of wo-
men as well as broad-cioth and pig-iron.
Then we might find out what he knows
and cares for our real and relative value
in the Government
Without some act of Congress regu-
iating suffrage for women as well as
black men, women citizens of the United
states who, in Washington, Utah, and
wyoming Territories, are voters and
jurors, and who, in the State of Kansas,
vote on school and license questions,
would be denied the exercise of their
1 right to vote in all the States of the I'm
| ion, and no naturalization papers, edH.
cation, property, residence, or age could
help them. What an anomaly is this
republici A woman who in Wyoming
enjoys all the rights, privileges, and
immunities of a sovereign, by crossing
the line into Nebraska, sinks at once TO
the political degradation Of a slave
Humiliated with such injustice, one
set of statesmen answer her appeals by
sending her for redress to the courts;
another advises her TO submit her quali-
fications to the States; but we, with a
clearer intuition of the rightful power,
come TO you who thoughtfully, con-
scientiously, and understandinglyp passed
that amendment defining the word ''cit-
izen," declaring suffrage a foundation
right. HOware women "citizens," from
Utah, Wyoming, Kansas, moving into
other States, to be protected inthe rights
they have heretofore enjoyed, unless
Congress shall pass the bin presented by
Mr.. Butler, and thus give us homo
geneous law on suffrage from Maine to
Louisiana?
Remember, these are citizens of the
! United States as well as the Territories
and States wherein they reside, and
their rights as such are of primal con-
sideration. One of your own amend
ments 10 the Federal Constitution, hon
orable gentlemen, says ''that the right
of citizens of the United States to vote
shall not be denied or abridged by any
State on account of race, color, or pre-
vious condition of servitude" Wehave
women of different races and colors, as
well as men. 1t takes more than men
to compose peoples and races, and no one
denies that all women suffer the disa-
bilities of a present or previous condi-
ton of servitude. Clearly the State
may regulate, but cannot deny the ex-
ercise of this right to any citizen.
You did not leave the negroes to the
tender mercies of the courts and States.
Why send your mothers, wives, and
daughters suppliants at the feet of the
unwashed, unlettered, unthinking
masses that carry our elections in the
States? Would you compel the women
of New York to sue the Tweeds, the
Sweeneys, the Connollys, for their in
alienable rights, or to have the scales of
justice balanced for them in the un-
steady hand of a Cardozo, a Barnard, or
a McCunn? Nay, nay; the proper tri-
bunal to decide nice questions of human
rights and constitutional interpretations,
thepolitical status of every citizen under
our national flag, is the Congress of the
United States. This is your right and
duty, clearly set forth in article /, sec
tion D, of the Constitution, for how can
you decide the competency and qualifi-
cations of electors for members of either
House without settling the fundamental
question on what the right of suffrage is
based? All power eenters in the people. |
Our Federal Constitution, as well as
that of every State, opens with the |
words, "We, the people" However
this phrase may have been understood |
and acted on in the past, women to-day |
are awake to the fact that they cOnsti- /
tute one-half the American people; that
they have the right to demand that the |
Constitution shall secure TO them 'jus-
.ice,n domestic TRANQUILITY and the
BLESSINGS of liberty" So long as wom-
IN are not represented in the Govern
nent they are in condition of tutelage,
minority, slavery.
You smile at the idea of women being
slaves in this country. Ben Franklin
said long ago, that they who have no
voice in making the laws, or in the cleo
ton of those who administer them, do
not enjoy liberty, but are absolutely en-
slaved to those who have votes and to
their representatives. / might occupy
hours in quoting grand liberal senti-
ments from the fathers-MadisOn, JEFF
ferson, Otis, and Adams-in favor of in
dividual representation. ] might quote
equally noble words from the statesmen
of our day-Seward, Summer, Wade,
rrumbull, SchurZ, Thurman, Groesbeck,
and Julian-to prove ''that no just gov
ernment can be formed without the con-
sent of the governed;" that the ballot is
the Columbiad of our political life, and
every man who holds it is full-armed
Monitor. But what do lofty utterances
and logical arguments avail so long as
men, blinded by old prejudices and Gus
toms, fail to see their application to the
women by their side2 Alas! gentle
men, women are your subjects. Your
own selfish interests are too closely in
terwoyen for you to feel their degrada-
ton, and they are too dependent TO re-
veal themselves to you in their nobler
their native dignity. Did
Southern Shareholders ever understand
the humiliation of slavery to a proud
man like Fredrick Douglas? +? Did the
coarse, low-bred master ever doubt his
to govern the negro better than
he could govern himself? Docow-boys.
hostlers, pot-house politicians ever doubt
their capacity to prescribe woman's
sphere better than she could herself?
We have yet to learn that, with the
wonderful progress in art, science, edu-
cation, morals, religion, and government
we have witnessed in the last century,
woman has not been standing still, but
has been gradually advancing 10 an
equal place with the man by her side,
and stands to-day his peer in the world
Of thought.
American wOmanhOOd has never worn
iron shoes, burned on the funeral pile, or
skulked behind a mask in harem, yet,
though Graded in liberty, with the same
keen sense of justice and equality that
man has, she is still bound by law in the
swaddIing bands of an old barbarism.
Though the world has been steadily ad-
vaneing in political science, and step by
recognizing the rights of new classes,
vet we stand to-day talking of prece-
tents, authorities, laws, and constitu-
ions, as if each generation were not