Mr. HOAR. Mr. President, I do not propose to make a speech at this late hour of the day; it would be cruel to the Senate; and I had not expected that this measure would be here this afternoon. I was absent on a public duty and came in just at the close of the speech of my honorable friend from Missouri [Mr. VEST]. I wish, however, to say one word in regard to what seemed to be the burden of his speech.
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 upon 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 want to be Senators, and want to be marshals and sheriffs, and that seems to him supremely ridiculous. Now I do not understand that that is the proposition. What they want to do and to be is to be eligible to such public duty as a majority of their fellow-citizens may think they are fitted for. The majority of 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 they will be imposed only upon such persons as are fit for them. But they want that if the majority of the American people think a woman like Queen Victoria, or Queen Elizabeth, or Queen Isabella of Spain, or Maria Theresa of Hungary (the four most brilliant sovereigns of any sex in modern history with only two or three exceptions), the fittest person to be President of the United States, they may be permitted to exercise their choice accordingly.
Old men are eligible to office, old men are allowed to vote, but we do not send old men to war, or make constables or watchmen or overseers of State prisons of old men; and it is utterly idle to suppose that the fitness to vote or the fitness to hold office has anything to do with the physical strength or with the particular mental qualities in regard to which the sexes differ from each other.
Mr. President, 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 the argument against popular government whether by man or woman, and the Senator only applies to this new phase of the claim of equal rights what his predecessors would argue against the rights we now have applied to us.
But the Senator thought it was unspeakably absurd that a woman with her sentiment and emotional nature and liability to be moved by passion and feeling should hold the office of Senator. Why, Mr. President, the Senator's own speech is a refutation of its own argument. Everybody knows that my honorable friend from Missouri is one of the most brilliant men in this country. He is a logician, he is an orator, he is a man of large experience, he is a lawyer entrusted with large interests; yet when he was called upon to put forth this great effort of his this afternoon and to argue this question which he thinks so clear, what did he do? He furnished the gush and the emotion and the eloquence, but when he came to any argument he had to call upon two women, Mrs. Leonard and Mrs. Whitney to supply all that. [Laughter.] If Mrs. Leonard and Mrs. Whitney have to make the argument in the Senate of the United States for the brilliant and distinguished Senator from Missouri it does not seem to me so absolutely ridiculous that they should have or that women like them should have seats here to make arguments of their own. [Manifestations of applause in the galleries.]
The joint resolution was reported to the Senate without amendment.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. If no amendment be proposed the question is, shall the joint resolution be engrossed for a third reading?
Mr. COCKRELL. Let us have the yeas and nays.
Mr. BLAIR. Why not take the yeas and nays on the passage?
Mr. COCKRELL. Very well.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The call is withdrawn.
The joint resolution was ordered to be engrossed for a third reading, and was read the third time.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Shall the joint resolution pass?
Mr. COCKRELL. I call for the yeas and nays.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Upon this question the yeas and nays will necessarily be taken.
The Secretary proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. CHACE (when his name was called). I am paired with the Senator from North Carolina [Mr. RANSOM]. If he were present I should vote "yea."
Mr. DAWES (when his name was called). I am paired with the Senator from Texas [Mr. MAXEY]. I regret that I am not able to vote on this question. I should vote "yea" if he were here.
Mr. COKE. My colleague [Mr. MAXEY], if present, would vote "nay."
Mr. GRAY (when Mr. GORMAN'S name was called). I am requested by the Senator from Maryland [Mr. GORMAN] to say that he is paired with the Senator from Maine [Mr. FRYE].
Mr. STANFORD (when his name was called). I am paired with the Senator from West Virginia [Mr. CAMDEN]. If he were present I should vote "yea."
The roll-call was concluded.
Mr. HARRIS. I have a general pair with the Senator from Vermont [Mr. EDMUNDS], who is necessarily absent from the Chamber, but I see his colleague voted "nay," and as I am opposed to the resolution I will record my vote "nay."
Mr. KENNA. I am paired on all questions with the Senator from New York [Mr. MILLER].
Mr. JONES, of Arkansas. I have a general pair with the Senator from Indiana [Mr. HARRISON]. If he were present I should vote "nay" on this question.
Mr. BROWN. I was requested by the Senator from South Carolina [Mr. BUTLER] to announce his pair with the Senator from Pennsylvania [Mr. CAMERON], and to say that if the Senator from South Carolina were present he would vote "nay." I do not know how the Senator from Pennsylvania would vote.
Mr. CULLOM. I was requested by the Senator from Maine [Mr. FRYE] to announce his pair with the Senator from Maryland [Mr. GORMAN].
The result was announced—yeas 16, nays 34; as follows:
YEAS—16.
Blair,Bowen,Cheney,Conger,Cullom,Dolph,Farwell,Hoar,Manderson,Mitchell of Oreg.,Mitchell of Pa.,Palmer,Platt,Sherman,Teller,Wilson of Iowa.
NAYS—34.
Beck,Berry,Blackburn,Brown,Call,Cockrell,Coke,Colquitt,Eustis,Evarts,George,Gray,Hampton,Harris,Hawley,Ingalls,Jones of Nevada,McMillan,McPherson,Mahone,Morgan,Morrill,Payne,Pugh,Saulsbury,Sawyer,Sewell,Spooner,Vance,Vest,Walthall,Whitthorne,Williams,Wilson of Md.
ABSENT—26
Aldrich,Allison,Butler,Camden,Cameron,Chace,Dawes,Edmunds,Fair,Frye,Gibson,Gorman,Hale,Harrison,Jones of Arkansas,Jones of Florida,Kenna,Maxey,Miller,Plumb,Ransom,Riddleberger,Sabin,Stanford,Van Wyck,Voorhees.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Two-thirds have not voted for the resolution. It is not passed.
Mr. PLUMB subsequently said: I wish to state that I was unexpectedly called out of the Senate just before the vote was taken on the constitutional amendment, and to also state that if I had been here I should have voted for it.