St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1888-06-07


which this government rests, are equal
rights, yet now here in all this broad
land do equal rights prevail? On the
one side we have privileged, a govern
ing class; on the other side subjected.
a governed class. One half of the peo-
pie of this so called republic live in pre-
ciSely the same political bondage our
fOremothers lived in under the mon
archs of England before the colonies re-
belled and seeded from the British en-
pire. Our forefathers called them
selves slaves because of such Oppres-
sionS. If it were slavery for them, how
is it not slavery for us? ] have been
deputed by the Missouri Woman's Suf-
frage society to come before you and ask
you to recognize these just principles,
and to pledge your party to
RIGHT THESE GREAT WRONGS
by procuring such an amendment to the
constitution as will give to women equal
civil and political rights with men, in
Guiding the right preservatiye of all
rlghts-the right of suffrage. The Re-
publican party claims and wears a
crown of glory for giving freedom to
100000 of negro slaves. How much
more glorious crown will that party
freedom of the educated Christian
women of this country. You now have
the opportunity to become the cham
piOn of freedom for the whole, instead
of half the people. A declaration so
noble, so grand, coming from this great
body of democratic men will send
thrill through humanity's great heart
such as it never felt since time began,
and will carry the memory of this con-
vention down to the very end of time
itself. If, however, you refuse this act
of plain and simple justice, if you are
determined to perpetuate the Subjec-
as measure Of mercy, of kindness to
class
DOOMED TO POLITICAL SLAVERY,
we suggest as appropriate to your plat
form of principles the following pream-
bic and resolutions:
Whereas, All history proves that edu-
cation units human beings for the con-
ditiOn of subsection: education awakens
in the human soul aspirations for larger
liberties and higher life and fills the
human heart with discomfort at the ell
vironmentS of slavery, and
Whereas, During the last fifty years
we, the rulers of this land, have COM
mitted the grave mistake of permitting
our subjected class to enter schools of
learning, thereby expanding their
brains, quickening their thoughts, and
breeding diSatfectiOn against our time
hOnOred rule; these women going to
and fro over our land knocking at legiS-
lative doors, demanding to know why
the glorious doctrines of democracy
should not apply to women as to men;
why the eternal principle of equal rights
should not shelter women as it shelters
men; why, if it be tyranny to tax
men without representation, it is not
equal tyranny to tax women; why, If it
be slavery for men to be governed with
out their own consent, it is not slavery
for women, and other like impairment
questions which weary and sicken the
souls of men, and
Whereas, All history proves that the
deeper and denser the ignorance in
which class is kept, the less will that
class annoy its masters by impertinenU
demands for larger liberties. and
Whereas, 1t is the firm and unaltera-
BILE determination of the democratic
men of this country never to grant
equal rights to our mothers, sisters,
wives and daughters, but always and
forever to hold them an inferior class;
always and forever hold ourselves a
privileged, a superior class; always and
forever to govern women without their
own consent and tax them without rep
resentatiOn: therefore, be it
Resolved, That we, the Democratic
men of America, in convention as
sembled, advise and urge the legiSla-
ture of every state in this broad Union
to enact such laws as will forever put
stop to the education of this land and
thereby stop the clamor for equal rights
as will forever close the doors of every
school, public and private, to the female
children of this country, and we advise
and urge that it be made penal Of
Tense, punishable by fine and imprison-
ment, to teach any girl child the letters
of the alphabet; and that any woman
convicted of reading a newspaper or
book, or of entering lecture halls,
whether as listener or speaker, be Sc
verely punished by law.
Gentleman of the Democratic conveu-
ton, laws of this nature are fitted for
slave class, and, if strictly enforced,
will in a few generations etfectually
Subdue that
SPIRIT OF REBELLION
now so active in your subjected class;
will effectually crush every aspiration
for high life and reduce the women of
this country to that state of mental leth-
argy and unthinking content, which so
happily characterized the great majority
of the negro slaves in days of their hope
less bondage.
Gentlemen of the convention, on the
part of the thirty millions of women of
America, we thank you for the ten mill
utes you have given us.