Woman's chronicle. (Little Rock, Ark.) 1888-1???, 1890-03-08

unearthed some years ago.
Woman mind is rising above the plane OF
individual interest, cher sphere''-to the standard
of right, principle and liberty
Mrs. ELIZABETH CADY STANTON in her opening
address before the Convention at Washington,
shows clearly how our farefathers-the trainers of
the onstitution-evdently accounted women
''people." Mrs. Stanton also had something to
say upon what is understood by men as being
'womanly." In reviewing the action of the col
onies toward their women, she said:
Our title to voice in this government is as
clear as that of the man by our side. We were
accounted as ''people" and tvoters" in the Con-
situations of the thirteen original colonies. We
find no mention of a privileged class of "white
male citizens in those early Documents we hear
only of ''people," stpersons," ''inhabitants"
and ''tax- payers. Accordingly, women voted in
some of the colonies UNTIL as States, their Consti-
buttons were so frame as to unite the suffrage with
qualifications of property, education, color and
sex, in violation of every principle in our govern
ment. 1t is patent and oft-repeated fact that in
the State of New Jersey women voted at all cleo
tions from 1776 to 1907 upon terms of equality
with men. They helped to elect the delegates
from that State to the Constitutional convention.
They voted to ratify the instrument when sub
mitted. They voted at the first five presidential
elections-twice for Washington, twice for Jeffer-
son, and once for John Adams. Their descend
ants are only claiming the exercise, of right as
old as the Constitution ITSELF The contest in the
year 1900 was bitter beyond all precedent and we
are told that all the women of the State who were
entitled to vote did so. One of these votes, the
late Mrs. Cumback, mother of the Hon. VIM. E.
Cumback of Indiana died only few years ago.
This right in the colonies was but following the
precedent established far back in English history
showing that women voted and held office through
out that kingdom at an early day. 1t is clear,
then, that women have been cruelty robbed of
rights they once possessed and exercised.
For fifty years we have been plaintiffs at the
bar of justice and three generations of statesmen
judges, and reformers, have exhausted their able
arguments and eloquent appeals in the courts and
before the people. But as the bench, the bar, and
the jury are all men, we are nonsuted every time.
Some men tell us we must be patient and per-
suaslve; that we must be womanly. My friends
what is mans idea of womanly? 1t is to have a
manner that peases him, quiet, deferential, SUBJ
missive-that approaches him as subject does q
master. He wants no self-assertion on our part
no defiance, no vehement arraigning of him as a
robber and a criminal. While the grand motto
Resistance to tyrants is obedience to Cod" has
echoed and re-echoed around the globe, eectrifv-
ing the lovers of liberty in every latitude and
making crowned heads tremble on their thrones
while every right achieved by the oppressed has
been wrung from tyrants by force; while the dark
est page on human history is the outrages on
women--shall men tell us today to be patient, per-
suasive, womanly? What do we know as vet Of
what is womanly? The women we have seen Tins
far have been, with rare EXCEPTIONS the mere
echoes OF men. Man has spoken in the State, the
cn9rch ana the home, and made the creeds and
codes and customs that govern every relation in
life; and we have simply echoed all his tbouobts
and walked in the paths he nrescrihod oI o.