FOOTNOTES:

Senator Vest then presented a list of two hundred men from Massachusetts, among them forty-five clergymen, remonstrating against any further extension of suffrage to women. He next presented the old-time letter of Mrs. Clara T. Leonard of thatState protesting against the enfranchisement of women. Senator Hoar called attention to the fact that the writer herself was an office-holder, a member of the State Board of Lunacy and Charity, to which Senator Vest answered:

Ah! but what sort of an office-holder? She held the office delegated to her by God himself, a ministering angel to the sick, the afflicted and the insane. What man in his senses would take from woman this sphere? What man would close to her the charitable institutions and eleemosynary establishments of the country? That is part of her kingdom; that is part of her undisputed sway and realm. Is that the office to which woman suffragists of this country ask us now to admit them? Is it to be the director of a hospital? Is it to the presidency of a board of visitors of an eleemosynary institution? Oh, no; they want to be President, to be Senators and Members of the House of Representatives and, God save the mark, ministerial and executive officers, sheriffs, constables and marshals. Of course, this lady is found on this board of directors. Where else should a true woman be found? Where else has she always been found but by the fevered brow, the palsied hand, the erring intellect, aye, God bless them, from the cradle to the grave the guide and support of the faltering steps of childhood and the weakening steps of old age.[58]Oh, no, Mr. President, this will not do. If we are to tear down all the blessed traditions, if we are to desolate our homes and firesides, if we are to unsex our mothers and wives and sisters and turn our blessed temples of domestic peace into ward political-assembly rooms, pass this joint resolution. But for one I thank God that I am so old-fashioned that I would not give one memory of my grandmother or of my mother for all the arguments that could be piled, Pelion upon Ossa, in favor of this political monstrosity.I now present a pamphlet sent to me by a lady. I do not know whether she be wife or mother. She signs this pamphlet as Adeline D. T. Whitney. I have read it twice, and read it to pure and gentle and intellectual women. I shall not read it today for my strength does not suffice.[59]... There is not one impure, unintellectual aspiration or thought throughout the whole of it. Would to God that I knew her, that I could thank her on behalf of the society and politics of the United States for this production. She says to her own sex: "After all, men work for women; or, if they think they do not, it would leave them but sorry satisfaction to abandon them to such existence as they could arrange without us."Oh, how true that is, how true!

Oh, no, Mr. President, this will not do. If we are to tear down all the blessed traditions, if we are to desolate our homes and firesides, if we are to unsex our mothers and wives and sisters and turn our blessed temples of domestic peace into ward political-assembly rooms, pass this joint resolution. But for one I thank God that I am so old-fashioned that I would not give one memory of my grandmother or of my mother for all the arguments that could be piled, Pelion upon Ossa, in favor of this political monstrosity.

I now present a pamphlet sent to me by a lady. I do not know whether she be wife or mother. She signs this pamphlet as Adeline D. T. Whitney. I have read it twice, and read it to pure and gentle and intellectual women. I shall not read it today for my strength does not suffice.[59]... There is not one impure, unintellectual aspiration or thought throughout the whole of it. Would to God that I knew her, that I could thank her on behalf of the society and politics of the United States for this production. She says to her own sex: "After all, men work for women; or, if they think they do not, it would leave them but sorry satisfaction to abandon them to such existence as they could arrange without us."

Oh, how true that is, how true!

This pamphlet of over five thousand words which began, "What is the law of woman-life? What was she made woman for, and not man?"—might be described as the apotheosis of the sentimental effusions of Senators Brown and Vest.

During the discussion Senator George F. Hoar (Mass.) said:

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. 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 to fulfil 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 Senators and marshals and sheriffs, and that seems to him supremely ridiculous. Now I do not understand that this is the proposition. What they want is simply to be eligible to such public duty as a majority of their fellow-citizens may think they are fitted for. The most of the 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 it will be only upon such persons as are fit for them.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 against popular government, whether by men or women, and the Senator only applies to this new phase of the claim of equal rights what his predecessors would have argued against the rights which men now enjoy.But the Senator thought it was unspeakably absurd that 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 wide 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 wanted an argument he had to call upon two women to supply it.If Mrs. Leonard and Mrs. Whitney have to make the argument in the Senateof the United States for the 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 in this body to make arguments of their own.

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 to fulfil 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 Senators and marshals and sheriffs, and that seems to him supremely ridiculous. Now I do not understand that this is the proposition. What they want is simply to be eligible to such public duty as a majority of their fellow-citizens may think they are fitted for. The most of the 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 it will be only upon such persons as are fit for them.

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 against popular government, whether by men or women, and the Senator only applies to this new phase of the claim of equal rights what his predecessors would have argued against the rights which men now enjoy.

But the Senator thought it was unspeakably absurd that 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 wide 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 wanted an argument he had to call upon two women to supply it.If Mrs. Leonard and Mrs. Whitney have to make the argument in the Senateof the United States for the 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 in this body to make arguments of their own.

Senator Blair closed the debate by saying in part:

I appeal to Senators not to decide this question upon the arguments which have been offered here today for or against the merits of the proposition. I appeal to them to decide it upon that other principle to which I have adverted, whether one-half of the American people shall be permitted to go into the arena of public discussion in the various States, and before their Legislatures be heard upon the issue, "Shall the Federal Constitution be so amended as to extend this right of suffrage?" If, with this opportunity, those who believe in woman suffrage shall fail, then they must be content; for I agree with the Senators upon the opposite side of the chamber and with all who hold that if the suffrage is to be extended at all, it must be by the operation of existing law. I believe it to be an innate right; yet even an innate right must be exercised only by the consent of the controlling forces of the State. That is all woman asks—that an amendment be submitted.

The opposition had presented three documents, each representing the views of one woman, and one of these anonymous. Senator Blair presented a petition for the suffrage from the Woman's Christian Temperance Union of 200,000 members, signed by Miss Frances E. Willard, president, and the entire official board. This was accompanied by a strong personal appeal from a number of distinguished women, and hundreds of thousands of petitions had been previously sent. The Senator also received permission to have printed in theCongressional Recordthe arguments made by the representatives of the suffrage movement before the Senate committee in 1880 and 1884.[60]

A vote was then taken on the resolution to submit to the State Legislatures an amendment to the Federal Constitution forbidding the disfranchisement of United States citizens on account of sex, which resulted in 16 yeas, 34 nays, 26 absent.[61]Of theabsentees Senators Chace, Dawes, Plumb and Stanford announced that they would have voted "yea;" Jones of Arkansas and Butler that they would have voted "nay."

Thus on January 25, 1887, occurred the first and only discussion and vote in the United States Senate on the submission of an amendment to the Federal Constitution which should forbid disfranchisement on account of sex, that took place up to the end of the nineteenth century.

FOOTNOTES:[31]The only time the direct question of woman suffrage ever had been discussed and voted on in the U. S. Senate was in December, 1866, on the Bill to Regulate the Franchise for the District of Columbia—History of Woman Suffrage, Vol. II, p. 102; and in May, 1874, on the Bill to Establish the Territory of Pembina—the same, p. 545; but these were entirely distinct from the submission of a constitutional amendment.[32]Extended space is accorded this discussion, as it might reasonably be expected that on the floor of the United States Senate would be made the most exhaustive arguments possible on both sides of this important question.[33]This report had been presented Mar. 28, 1884, by Senators T. W. Palmer, H. W. Blair, E. G. Lapham and H. B. Anthony.[34]The italics are made by the editors of the History.[35]Senator Brown did not enter the army during the Civil War.[36]As a lawyer Senator Brown was always exempt from jury service.[37]Senator Brown had this done by his representatives, as any woman could do.[38]As every private family urgently needs the man and the woman, why are both not needed in this "great aggregation?"[39]Do women have no hardships or hazards in time of war?[40]If her duties are just as laborious, responsible and important as man's, do they not entitle her to a voice in the Government?[41]Since this tremendous responsibility is placed upon woman, why should she not have a voice in the conditions which surround these children outside the home? Why should man alone determine these conditions which often counteract all the mother's training?[42]Senator Brown assumes that all women are wives and the mothers of young children, and that the mother's sense of duty would not hold her to the care of her children if she had a chance to go into politics.[43]Would any man be willing to exchange his influence for that of a woman in the affairs of government?[44]This would seem to be the very influence which ought to be enforced by a vote.[45]In readjusting the qualifications for the suffrage the Southern States have been very careful to secure the right to all the illiteratewhitemen.[46]Senator Brown says in the preceding paragraph that the "delicate and lovely women" would not remain at home but would consider it an imperative duty to go to the polls.[47]Is it because women lack physical strength that they are not allowed to practice law in Georgia or to act as notaries public or to fill any office, even that of school trustee, and that no woman is permitted to enter the State University? The men should at least give their "queens" and "princesses" and "angels" an education.[48]Yes, if the husband has to enforce it with a club. This paragraph does not tally with the one in the early part of the Senator's speech where all women were placed on a throne, and all men were declared to be their natural protectors.[49]The picture of family life in Georgia is not alluring, but the Senator takes small account of the woman who does not happen to possess a "male," or rather to be possessed by one.[50]Therefore the wife should not be allowed any individuality. Statistics, however, from the States where women do vote prove exactly the opposite of this assertion in regard to divorce.[51]For account of the unconstitutional disfranchisement of the women of Washington Territory by its Supreme Court, see chapter on that State.[52]This does not seem to apply to negro suffrage in the Southern States.[53]One hearing Senator Brown's blood-curdling descriptions would think they were more than "inconveniences."[54]Observe that Senator Vest's entire argument against woman suffrage is based wholly on sentiment and emotion and is entirely devoid of logic.[55]The Senator meant that it is a right which comes from the men of the State, from one-half of its people.[56]Because of a few such brutes millions of women must be deprived of the suffrage. If women had some control over the conditions which tend to make men brutes, might the number not be lessened? The Senator ignores entirely the secret ballot which would prevent the aforesaid brutes from knowing how the women voted.[57]In the preceding paragraph she did not seem to be on a pedestal.[58]The advocates of woman suffrage have repeatedly had bills in the various Legislatures asking that women might be appointed on the boards of all State institutions, and as physicians in all where women and children are placed, but up to the present day not one woman is allowed this privilege in Senator Vest's own State of Missouri.[59]This does not accord with the argument of Senator Brown that man must do the voting for the family on account of his superior physical strength.[60]These were Susan B. Anthony, Nancy R. Allen, Lillie Devereux Blake, Lucinda B. Chandler, Abigail Scott Duniway, Helen M. Gougar, Mary Seymour Howell, Elizabeth Boynton Harbert, Dr. Clemence S. Lozier, Julia Smith Parker, Caroline Gilkey Rogers, Elizabeth Lyle Saxon, May Wright Sewall, Mary A. Stuart, Sara Andrews Spencer, Harriette R. Shattuck, Zerelda G. Wallace, Sarah E. Wall—nearly all of national reputation.[61]Yeas: Blair, N. H.; Bowen, Col.; Cheney, N. H.; Conger, Mich.; Cullom, Ills.; Dolph, Ore.; Farwell, Ill.; Hoar, Mass.; Manderson, Neb.; Mitchell, Ore.; Mitchell, Penn.; Palmer, Mich.; Platt, Conn.; Sherman, O.; Teller, Col.; Wilson, Iowa—16.Nays: Beck, Ky., Berry, Ark, Blackburn, Ky., Brown, Ga., Call, Fla., Cockrell, Mo., Coke, Tex., Colquitt, Ga., Eustis, La., Evarts, N. Y., George, Miss., Gray, Del., Hampton, S. C., Harris, Tenn., Hawley, Conn., Ingalls, Kan., Jones, Nev., McMillan, Mich., McPherson, N. J., Mahone, Va., Morgan, Ala., Morrill, Vt., Payne, O., Pugh, Ala., Saulsbury, Del., Sawyer, Wis., Sewell, N. J., Spooner, Wis., Vance, N. C.; Vest, Mo., Walthall, Miss., Whitthorne, Tenn., Williams, Cal., Wilson, Md.—34.Absent: Aldrich, R. I., Allison, Ia., Butler, S. C., Camden, W. Va., Cameron, Penn., Chace, R. I., Dawes, Mass., Edmunds, Vt., Fair, Nev., Frye, Me., Gibson, La., Gorman, Md., Hale, Me., Harrison, Ind., Jones, Ark., Jones, Fla., Kenna, W. Va., Maxey, Tex., Miller, N. Y., Plumb, Kan., Ransom, N. C., Riddleberger, Va.; Sabin, Minn., Stanford, Cal.; Van Wyck, Neb., Voorhees, Ind.—26.

[31]The only time the direct question of woman suffrage ever had been discussed and voted on in the U. S. Senate was in December, 1866, on the Bill to Regulate the Franchise for the District of Columbia—History of Woman Suffrage, Vol. II, p. 102; and in May, 1874, on the Bill to Establish the Territory of Pembina—the same, p. 545; but these were entirely distinct from the submission of a constitutional amendment.

[32]Extended space is accorded this discussion, as it might reasonably be expected that on the floor of the United States Senate would be made the most exhaustive arguments possible on both sides of this important question.

[33]This report had been presented Mar. 28, 1884, by Senators T. W. Palmer, H. W. Blair, E. G. Lapham and H. B. Anthony.

[34]The italics are made by the editors of the History.

[35]Senator Brown did not enter the army during the Civil War.

[36]As a lawyer Senator Brown was always exempt from jury service.

[37]Senator Brown had this done by his representatives, as any woman could do.

[38]As every private family urgently needs the man and the woman, why are both not needed in this "great aggregation?"

[39]Do women have no hardships or hazards in time of war?

[40]If her duties are just as laborious, responsible and important as man's, do they not entitle her to a voice in the Government?

[41]Since this tremendous responsibility is placed upon woman, why should she not have a voice in the conditions which surround these children outside the home? Why should man alone determine these conditions which often counteract all the mother's training?

[42]Senator Brown assumes that all women are wives and the mothers of young children, and that the mother's sense of duty would not hold her to the care of her children if she had a chance to go into politics.

[43]Would any man be willing to exchange his influence for that of a woman in the affairs of government?

[44]This would seem to be the very influence which ought to be enforced by a vote.

[45]In readjusting the qualifications for the suffrage the Southern States have been very careful to secure the right to all the illiteratewhitemen.

[46]Senator Brown says in the preceding paragraph that the "delicate and lovely women" would not remain at home but would consider it an imperative duty to go to the polls.

[47]Is it because women lack physical strength that they are not allowed to practice law in Georgia or to act as notaries public or to fill any office, even that of school trustee, and that no woman is permitted to enter the State University? The men should at least give their "queens" and "princesses" and "angels" an education.

[48]Yes, if the husband has to enforce it with a club. This paragraph does not tally with the one in the early part of the Senator's speech where all women were placed on a throne, and all men were declared to be their natural protectors.

[49]The picture of family life in Georgia is not alluring, but the Senator takes small account of the woman who does not happen to possess a "male," or rather to be possessed by one.

[50]Therefore the wife should not be allowed any individuality. Statistics, however, from the States where women do vote prove exactly the opposite of this assertion in regard to divorce.

[51]For account of the unconstitutional disfranchisement of the women of Washington Territory by its Supreme Court, see chapter on that State.

[52]This does not seem to apply to negro suffrage in the Southern States.

[53]One hearing Senator Brown's blood-curdling descriptions would think they were more than "inconveniences."

[54]Observe that Senator Vest's entire argument against woman suffrage is based wholly on sentiment and emotion and is entirely devoid of logic.

[55]The Senator meant that it is a right which comes from the men of the State, from one-half of its people.

[56]Because of a few such brutes millions of women must be deprived of the suffrage. If women had some control over the conditions which tend to make men brutes, might the number not be lessened? The Senator ignores entirely the secret ballot which would prevent the aforesaid brutes from knowing how the women voted.

[57]In the preceding paragraph she did not seem to be on a pedestal.

[58]The advocates of woman suffrage have repeatedly had bills in the various Legislatures asking that women might be appointed on the boards of all State institutions, and as physicians in all where women and children are placed, but up to the present day not one woman is allowed this privilege in Senator Vest's own State of Missouri.

[59]This does not accord with the argument of Senator Brown that man must do the voting for the family on account of his superior physical strength.

[60]These were Susan B. Anthony, Nancy R. Allen, Lillie Devereux Blake, Lucinda B. Chandler, Abigail Scott Duniway, Helen M. Gougar, Mary Seymour Howell, Elizabeth Boynton Harbert, Dr. Clemence S. Lozier, Julia Smith Parker, Caroline Gilkey Rogers, Elizabeth Lyle Saxon, May Wright Sewall, Mary A. Stuart, Sara Andrews Spencer, Harriette R. Shattuck, Zerelda G. Wallace, Sarah E. Wall—nearly all of national reputation.

[61]Yeas: Blair, N. H.; Bowen, Col.; Cheney, N. H.; Conger, Mich.; Cullom, Ills.; Dolph, Ore.; Farwell, Ill.; Hoar, Mass.; Manderson, Neb.; Mitchell, Ore.; Mitchell, Penn.; Palmer, Mich.; Platt, Conn.; Sherman, O.; Teller, Col.; Wilson, Iowa—16.Nays: Beck, Ky., Berry, Ark, Blackburn, Ky., Brown, Ga., Call, Fla., Cockrell, Mo., Coke, Tex., Colquitt, Ga., Eustis, La., Evarts, N. Y., George, Miss., Gray, Del., Hampton, S. C., Harris, Tenn., Hawley, Conn., Ingalls, Kan., Jones, Nev., McMillan, Mich., McPherson, N. J., Mahone, Va., Morgan, Ala., Morrill, Vt., Payne, O., Pugh, Ala., Saulsbury, Del., Sawyer, Wis., Sewell, N. J., Spooner, Wis., Vance, N. C.; Vest, Mo., Walthall, Miss., Whitthorne, Tenn., Williams, Cal., Wilson, Md.—34.Absent: Aldrich, R. I., Allison, Ia., Butler, S. C., Camden, W. Va., Cameron, Penn., Chace, R. I., Dawes, Mass., Edmunds, Vt., Fair, Nev., Frye, Me., Gibson, La., Gorman, Md., Hale, Me., Harrison, Ind., Jones, Ark., Jones, Fla., Kenna, W. Va., Maxey, Tex., Miller, N. Y., Plumb, Kan., Ransom, N. C., Riddleberger, Va.; Sabin, Minn., Stanford, Cal.; Van Wyck, Neb., Voorhees, Ind.—26.

Absent: Aldrich, R. I., Allison, Ia., Butler, S. C., Camden, W. Va., Cameron, Penn., Chace, R. I., Dawes, Mass., Edmunds, Vt., Fair, Nev., Frye, Me., Gibson, La., Gorman, Md., Hale, Me., Harrison, Ind., Jones, Ark., Jones, Fla., Kenna, W. Va., Maxey, Tex., Miller, N. Y., Plumb, Kan., Ransom, N. C., Riddleberger, Va.; Sabin, Minn., Stanford, Cal.; Van Wyck, Neb., Voorhees, Ind.—26.

The Nineteenth national convention assembled in the M. E. Metropolitan Church of Washington, Jan. 25, 1887, continuing in session three days. On no evening was the building large enough to accommodate the audience. The Rev. John P. Newman, pastor of the church, prayed earnestly for the blessing of God "on these women, who, through good and evil report, have been striving for the right."[62]Miss Susan B. Anthony came directly from the Capitol and opened the convention by reading a letter from Mrs. Elizabeth Cady Stanton, who was in England. She then referred to the fact that while this convention was in session the United States Senate was discussing the question of woman suffrage. There would be taken the first direct vote in that body on a Sixteenth Amendment to enfranchise women. The attention of the advocates of woman suffrage was directed to Congress for the first time when the Fourteenth Amendment was under discussion in 1865. That article in the beginning was broad enough to include women but political expediency inserted the word "male," so that if any State should disfranchise any of itsmalecitizens they should be counted out of the basis of representation. She continued:

This taught us that we might look to Congress. We presented our first petition in 1865. In December, 1866, came the discussion in the Senate on the proposition to strike the word "male" from the District of Columbia Suffrage Bill and nine voted in favor. Fromthat day we have gone forward pressing our claims on Congress. Denied in the construction of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments we have been trying for a Sixteenth Amendment. We have gained so much as a special committee, who hear our arguments and have four times reported in our favor; Senator Hoar, chairman in 1879, Senator Lapham in 1882, Senator Palmer in 1884, and Senator Blair in 1886. This is the bill which is pending now. We are not asking Congress to enfranchise us, because it does not possess that power. We are asking it to submit a proposition to be voted on by the Legislatures.

Mrs. Stanton's letter said in part:

For half a century we have tried appeals, petitions, arguments, with thrilling quotations from our greatest jurists and statesmen, and lo! in the year of our Lord, 1887, the best answer we can wring from Senators Brown and Cockrell, in the shape of a minority report, is a "chimney corner letter" written by a woman ignorant of the first principles of republican government, which, they say, gives a better statement of the whole question than they are capable of producing. Verily this is a new departure in congressional proceedings! Though a woman has not sufficient capacity to vote, yet she has superior capacity to her representatives in drawing up a minority report....But if Senators Cockrell and Brown hope to dispose of the question by remanding us to "the chimney corner" we trust their constituents will send them to keep us company, that they may enliven our retirement and make us satisfied 'in the sphere where the Creator intended we should be' by daily intoning for us their inspired minority report.The one pleasant feature in this original document is the harmony between the views of these gentlemen and their Creator. The only drawback to our faith in their knowledge of what exists in the Divine mind, is in the fact that they can not tell us when, where and how they interviewed Jehovah. I have always found that when men have exhausted their own resources, they fall back on "the intentions of the Creator." But their platitudes have ceased to have any influence with those women who believe they have the same facilities for communication with the Divine mind as men have.The right and liability to be called on to fight, if we vote, as continually emphasized by our opponents, is one of the greatest barriers in our way. If all the heroic deeds of women recorded in history and our daily journals, and the active virtues so forcibly illustrated in domestic life, have not yet convinced our opponents that women are possessed of superior fighting qualities, the sex may feel called upon in the near future to give some further illustrations of their prowess. Of one thing they may be assured, that the next generation will not argue the question of woman's rights with the infinite patience we have had for half a century, and to so little purpose.To emancipate woman from the fourfold bondage she has so long suffered in the State, the church, the home and the world of work, harder battles than we have yet fought are still before us.

But if Senators Cockrell and Brown hope to dispose of the question by remanding us to "the chimney corner" we trust their constituents will send them to keep us company, that they may enliven our retirement and make us satisfied 'in the sphere where the Creator intended we should be' by daily intoning for us their inspired minority report.

The one pleasant feature in this original document is the harmony between the views of these gentlemen and their Creator. The only drawback to our faith in their knowledge of what exists in the Divine mind, is in the fact that they can not tell us when, where and how they interviewed Jehovah. I have always found that when men have exhausted their own resources, they fall back on "the intentions of the Creator." But their platitudes have ceased to have any influence with those women who believe they have the same facilities for communication with the Divine mind as men have.

The right and liability to be called on to fight, if we vote, as continually emphasized by our opponents, is one of the greatest barriers in our way. If all the heroic deeds of women recorded in history and our daily journals, and the active virtues so forcibly illustrated in domestic life, have not yet convinced our opponents that women are possessed of superior fighting qualities, the sex may feel called upon in the near future to give some further illustrations of their prowess. Of one thing they may be assured, that the next generation will not argue the question of woman's rights with the infinite patience we have had for half a century, and to so little purpose.To emancipate woman from the fourfold bondage she has so long suffered in the State, the church, the home and the world of work, harder battles than we have yet fought are still before us.

Mrs. Caroline Hallowell Miller (Md.) paid a beautiful tribute to Miss Anthony, "the Sir Galahad in search of the Holy Grail," and closed with an eloquent prophecy of future success. Mrs. Lillie Devereux Blake (N. Y.) gave a clever satire on The Rights of Men, which was very imperfectly reported.

....Surely it is time that some one on this platform should say something for this half of humanity, which we really must confess after all is an important half. Ought we not admit that men have wrongs to complain of? Are they not constantly declaring themselves our slaves? Is it not a well known fact, conceded even here, that women shine in all the tints of the rainbow while men must wear only costumes of dull brown and somber black? Nor is this because men do not like bright colors, for never a belle in all the sheen of satin and glimmer of pearls looks half so happily proud as does a man when he has on a uniform, or struts in a political procession with a white hat on his head, a red ribbon in his buttonhole and a little cane in his hand.Then, too, have not men, poor fellows, had to do all the talking since the world began? Have we not heretofore been the silent sex? Even to-day a thousand men speak from pulpit and platform where one woman uplifts her voice.But let us pass to other and more important rights which have been denied to man in the past. The first right that any man ought to be allowed—a right paramount to all others—is the right to a wife. But look how even in this matter he has been hardly dealt with. Has he had just standards set before him as to what a wife should be? No, but he has been led to believe that the weak woman, the dependent woman, is the one to be desired....Look again at the unhappy mess into which man all by himself has brought politics and public affairs. Is it not too bad to leave him longer alone in his misery? Like the naughty boy who has broken and destroyed his toys, who needs mamma to help him mend them, and perhaps also to administer to him such wholesome discipline as Solomon himself has advised—so does man need woman to come to his rescue. Look what politics is now. Who to-day can tell the difference between a Democrat and a Republican? Even a Mugwump is becoming a doubtful being....Do not these wrongs which men suffer appeal to our tenderest sympathies? Is it not evident that the poor fellows can't go on alone much longer, that it is high time we should take the boys in hand and show them what a correct government really is?There is another question which deserves our gravest consideration. Man sinks or rises with woman; if she is degraded he is tempted to vice; if she is oppressed he is brutalized. What is the industrial condition of women to-day?...In behalf of the sons, the brothers and the husbands of these wage-earning women we ask for that political power which alone will insure equality of pay without regard to sex. For the sake of man's redemption and morality we demand that this injustice shall cease, for it is not possible for woman to be half-starved and man not dwarfed; for many women to be degraded and all men's lives pure; for women to be fallen and no man lost.We all know that man himself has been most willing to grant to women every right, every opportunity. If he has hesitated it has been rather from love and admiration of woman than from any tyrannical desire of oppression. He has said that women must not vote because they can not perform military duty. Can they not serve the nation as well as those men, who during the last war sent substitutes and to-day hold the highest places in the Government? But we ask one question: Which every year does most for the State, the soldier or the mother who risks her life not to destroy other life but to create it? Of the two it would be better to disfranchise the soldiers and enfranchise the mothers. For much as the nation owes to the soldiers, she owes far more to the mothers who in endless martyrdom make the nation a possibility....Man deserves that we should consider his present unhappy condition. In all ages he has proved his reverence for woman by embodying every virtue in female form, and has left none for himself. Truth and chastity, mercy and peace, charity and justice, all are represented as feminine, and lately, as a proof of his devotion, he has erected at the entrance to the harbor of our greatest metropolis a statue of liberty and this too is represented as a woman.... And so we hail the men, liberty enlightening a world where woman and man shall alike be free.

Then, too, have not men, poor fellows, had to do all the talking since the world began? Have we not heretofore been the silent sex? Even to-day a thousand men speak from pulpit and platform where one woman uplifts her voice.

But let us pass to other and more important rights which have been denied to man in the past. The first right that any man ought to be allowed—a right paramount to all others—is the right to a wife. But look how even in this matter he has been hardly dealt with. Has he had just standards set before him as to what a wife should be? No, but he has been led to believe that the weak woman, the dependent woman, is the one to be desired....

Look again at the unhappy mess into which man all by himself has brought politics and public affairs. Is it not too bad to leave him longer alone in his misery? Like the naughty boy who has broken and destroyed his toys, who needs mamma to help him mend them, and perhaps also to administer to him such wholesome discipline as Solomon himself has advised—so does man need woman to come to his rescue. Look what politics is now. Who to-day can tell the difference between a Democrat and a Republican? Even a Mugwump is becoming a doubtful being....

Do not these wrongs which men suffer appeal to our tenderest sympathies? Is it not evident that the poor fellows can't go on alone much longer, that it is high time we should take the boys in hand and show them what a correct government really is?

There is another question which deserves our gravest consideration. Man sinks or rises with woman; if she is degraded he is tempted to vice; if she is oppressed he is brutalized. What is the industrial condition of women to-day?...

In behalf of the sons, the brothers and the husbands of these wage-earning women we ask for that political power which alone will insure equality of pay without regard to sex. For the sake of man's redemption and morality we demand that this injustice shall cease, for it is not possible for woman to be half-starved and man not dwarfed; for many women to be degraded and all men's lives pure; for women to be fallen and no man lost.

We all know that man himself has been most willing to grant to women every right, every opportunity. If he has hesitated it has been rather from love and admiration of woman than from any tyrannical desire of oppression. He has said that women must not vote because they can not perform military duty. Can they not serve the nation as well as those men, who during the last war sent substitutes and to-day hold the highest places in the Government? But we ask one question: Which every year does most for the State, the soldier or the mother who risks her life not to destroy other life but to create it? Of the two it would be better to disfranchise the soldiers and enfranchise the mothers. For much as the nation owes to the soldiers, she owes far more to the mothers who in endless martyrdom make the nation a possibility....

Man deserves that we should consider his present unhappy condition. In all ages he has proved his reverence for woman by embodying every virtue in female form, and has left none for himself. Truth and chastity, mercy and peace, charity and justice, all are represented as feminine, and lately, as a proof of his devotion, he has erected at the entrance to the harbor of our greatest metropolis a statue of liberty and this too is represented as a woman.... And so we hail the men, liberty enlightening a world where woman and man shall alike be free.

One interesting address followed another throughout the convention, presenting the question of suffrage for women with appeal, humor, logic, statistics and every variety of argument.

Mrs. Harriette Robinson Shattuck (Mass.) presented in striking contrast The Women Who Ask and the Women Who Object. Mrs. Elizabeth Boynton Harbert in a fine address told of Our Motherless Government. Mrs. Isabella Beecher Hooker (Conn.) gave for the first time her masterly speech, The Constitutional Rights of the Women of the United States, which has been so widely circulated in pamphlet form, and which closed with this peroration:

There are those who say we have too many voters already. No, we have not too many. On the contrary, to take away the ballot even from the ignorant and perverse is to invite discontent, social disturbance, and crime. The restraints and benedictions of this littlewhite symbol are so silent and so gentle, so atmospheric, so like the snow-flakes that come down to guard the slumbering forces of the earth and prepare them for springing into bud, blossom, and fruit in due season, that few recognize the divine alchemy, and many impatient souls are saying we are on the wrong path—the Old World was right—the government of the few is safe; the wise, the rich, should rule; the ignorant, the poor, should serve. But God, sitting between the eternities, has said otherwise, and we of this land are foreordained to prove His word just and true. And we will prove it by inviting every newcomer to our shore to share our liberties so dearly bought and our responsibilities now grown so heavy that the shoulders which bear them are staggering under their weight; that by the joys of freedom and the burdens of responsibility they, with us, may grow into the stature of perfect men, and our country realize at last the dreams of the great souls who, "appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of their intentions," did "ordain and establish the Constitution for the United States of America"—the grandest charter of human rights that the world has yet conceived.

In an impassioned address Mrs. Mary Seymour Howell (N. Y.) contrasted The Present and the Past, saying:

The destiny of the world to-day lies in the hearts and brains of her women. The world can not travel upward faster than the feet of her women are climbing the paths of progress. Put us back if you can; veil us in harems; make us beasts of burden; take from us all knowledge; teach us we are only material; and humanity will go back to the dark ages. The nineteenth century is closing over a world arising from bondage. It is the grandest, sublimest spectacle ever beheld. The world has seen and is still looking at the luminous writing in the heavens—"The truth shall make you free"—and for the first time is gathering to itself the true significance of liberty. All the progress of these years has not come easily or from conservatism, but from the persistent efforts of enthusiastic radicals, men and women with ideas in their heads and courage in their hearts to make them practical.Ever since woman took her life in her own hands, ever since she began to think for herself, the dawning of a great light has flooded the world. We are the mothers of men. Show me the mothers of a country and I will tell you of the sons. If men would ever rise above their sensuality and materialism, they must have mothers whose pure souls, brave hearts and clear intellects have touched them deeply before their birth and equipped them for the journey of life....It is the evening of the nineteenth century, but the starlight is clearer than the morning of its existence. I look back and see in each year improvement and advancement. I see woman gathering up her soul and personality and claiming them as her own against all odds and the world. I see her asking that this personality maybe impressed upon her nation. I see her speaking her soul from platforms, preaching in pulpits of a life of which this is the shadow. I see her pleading before courts, using her brains to solve the knotty questions of the law. Woman's sphere is the wide world, her sceptre the mind that God has given her, her kingdom the largest place that she has the brains to fill and the will to hold. So is woman influencing the world, and as her sphere widens the world grows better. With the freedom she now has, see how she is arousing the public conscience on all questions of right....What is conservatism? It is the dying faith of a closing century. What is fanaticism? It is the dawning light of a new era. Yes, a new era will dawn with the twentieth century. I look to that time and see woman the redeeming power of the world.

Ever since woman took her life in her own hands, ever since she began to think for herself, the dawning of a great light has flooded the world. We are the mothers of men. Show me the mothers of a country and I will tell you of the sons. If men would ever rise above their sensuality and materialism, they must have mothers whose pure souls, brave hearts and clear intellects have touched them deeply before their birth and equipped them for the journey of life....

It is the evening of the nineteenth century, but the starlight is clearer than the morning of its existence. I look back and see in each year improvement and advancement. I see woman gathering up her soul and personality and claiming them as her own against all odds and the world. I see her asking that this personality maybe impressed upon her nation. I see her speaking her soul from platforms, preaching in pulpits of a life of which this is the shadow. I see her pleading before courts, using her brains to solve the knotty questions of the law. Woman's sphere is the wide world, her sceptre the mind that God has given her, her kingdom the largest place that she has the brains to fill and the will to hold. So is woman influencing the world, and as her sphere widens the world grows better. With the freedom she now has, see how she is arousing the public conscience on all questions of right....

What is conservatism? It is the dying faith of a closing century. What is fanaticism? It is the dawning light of a new era. Yes, a new era will dawn with the twentieth century. I look to that time and see woman the redeeming power of the world.

Mrs. Pearson of Nottingham gave a glowing account of the progress of suffrage in England and the work of the Primrose League; Madame Clara Neymann (N. Y.) made a scholarly address entitled Skeptics and Skepticism; Mrs. Clara Bewick Colby (Neb.), the Rev. Rush R. Shippen of Washington City and Miss Phoebe W. Couzins (Mo.) were among the speakers. Delegate Joseph M. Carey (Wy.) said in the course of his address:

Eighteen years ago the right of suffrage was given to the women of Wyoming. Women have voted as universally and as conscientiously as men. I have had the honor of voting for women and of being voted for by them. There are not three per cent. of women old enough who do not vote in every part of the Territory. In intelligence, beauty, grace, in perfection of home and social duties, the women of Wyoming will compare favorably with those of any other State. I have been asked if they neglect home affairs on account of politics. I have never known an instance of this. I have never known a controversy to arise from the wives voting differently from their husbands, which they often do. If women could vote in the States to-day they would vote as wisely as men....I will say to woman's credit she has not sought office, she is not a natural office-seeker, but she desires to vote, has preferences and exercises her rights. The superintendents in nearly all the counties are women. They have taken a deep interest in school matters and as a rule they control school meetings. Three-fourths of the voters present at these are women. In Cheyenne they alone seem to have the time to attend. Give woman this right to vote and she will make out of the boys men more capable of exercising it. I have seen the results and am satisfied that every woman should have the suffrage.

I will say to woman's credit she has not sought office, she is not a natural office-seeker, but she desires to vote, has preferences and exercises her rights. The superintendents in nearly all the counties are women. They have taken a deep interest in school matters and as a rule they control school meetings. Three-fourths of the voters present at these are women. In Cheyenne they alone seem to have the time to attend. Give woman this right to vote and she will make out of the boys men more capable of exercising it. I have seen the results and am satisfied that every woman should have the suffrage.

Mrs. Carey sat on the platform with Miss Anthony, Mrs. Hooker and other prominent members of the convention. The eloquent address of Mrs. May Wright Sewall (Ind.) on The Conditionsof Liberty attracted special attention. Mrs. Caroline Gilkey Rogers (N. Y.) proved in an original manner that There is Nothing New under the Sun. In a statesmanlike paper Mrs. Matilda Joslyn Gage (N. Y.) set forth the authority of Congress to secure to woman her right to the ballot:

To protect all citizens in the use of the ballot by national authority is not to deprive the States of the right of local self-government. When Andrew Jackson, who had been elected as a State's Rights man, asserted the supremacy of the National Government, that assertion, carried out as it was, did not deprive States of their power of self-government. Neither did the Reconstruction Acts nor the adoption of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments. Yet in many ways it is proved that States are not sovereign. Besides their inability to coin money, to declare peace and war, they are proved by their own acts not even to be self-protective. If women as individuals, as one-half of the people, call upon the nation for protection, they are doing no more nor less than so-called sovereign States themselves do. National aid has been frequently asked to preserve peace, or to insure that protection found impossible under mere local or State authority....In ratifying an amendment States become factors in the nation, the same as by the acts of their representatives and senators in Congress. A law created by themselves in this way can be no interference with their local rights of self-government; because in helping enact these laws, either through congressional action, or by legislative ratification of amendments, each State has arisen above and beyond itself into a higher national realm.The one right above all others which is not local is the right of self-government. That right being the corner stone on which the nation was founded, is a strictly national right. It is not local, it is not State....It does not matter by what instrumentality—whether by State constitution or by statute law—woman has been deprived of her national right of self-government, it is none the less the duty of Congress to protect her in regaining it. Surely her right to govern herself is of as much value as the protection of property, the quelling of riots, the destruction or establishment of banks, the guarding of the polls, the securing of a free ballot for the colored race or the taking of it from a Mormon voter.

In ratifying an amendment States become factors in the nation, the same as by the acts of their representatives and senators in Congress. A law created by themselves in this way can be no interference with their local rights of self-government; because in helping enact these laws, either through congressional action, or by legislative ratification of amendments, each State has arisen above and beyond itself into a higher national realm.

The one right above all others which is not local is the right of self-government. That right being the corner stone on which the nation was founded, is a strictly national right. It is not local, it is not State....

It does not matter by what instrumentality—whether by State constitution or by statute law—woman has been deprived of her national right of self-government, it is none the less the duty of Congress to protect her in regaining it. Surely her right to govern herself is of as much value as the protection of property, the quelling of riots, the destruction or establishment of banks, the guarding of the polls, the securing of a free ballot for the colored race or the taking of it from a Mormon voter.

In her address on The Work of Women, Miss Mary F. Eastman (Mass.) said: "Men say the work of the State is theirs. The State is the people. The origin of government is simply that two men call in a third for umpire. The ideal of the State is gradually rising. No State can be finer in its type of government than the individuals who make it. We enunciate a grandprinciple, then we are timid and begin restricting its application. We are a nation of infidels to principle."

The leading feature of the last evening was the address of Mrs. Zerelda G. Wallace (Ind.) on Woman's Ballot a Necessity for the Permanence of Free Institutions. A Washington paper said: "As she stood upon the platform, holding her hearers as in her hand, she looked a veritable queen in Israel and the personification of womanly dignity and lofty bearing. The line of her argument was irresistible, and her eloquence and pathos perfectly bewildering. Round after round of applause greeted her as she poured out her words with telling effect upon the great congregation before her, who were evidently in perfect accord with her earnest and womanly utterances."

An imperfect extract from a newspaper report will suggest the trend of her argument:

In this Nineteenth annual convention, reviewing what these nineteen years have brought, we find that we have won every position in the field of argument for our cause. By its dignity and justice we have overcome ridicule, although our progress has been impeded by the tyranny of custom and prejudice.I will ask the American question "will it pay" to enfranchise the women of this nation—I will not say republic? The world has never been blessed with a republic. Those who think this is a narrow struggle for woman's rights have never conceived the height, length and breadth of this momentous question.The purpose of divinity is enunciated in that it is said He would create humanity in His image. The purpose of the Creator is that the two are to have dominion; woman is included in the original grant. Free she must be before you yourselves will be free. The highest form of development is to govern one's self. No man governs himself who practices injustice to another....We have passed through one Gethsemane because of our refusal to co-operate with the Deity in His purpose to establish justice and liberty on this continent. It took a hundred years and a Civil War to evolve the principle in our nation that all men were created free and equal. Will it require another century and another Civil War before there is secured to humanity the God-given inalienable right to "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness?" The most superficial observer can see elements at work, a confusion of forces, that can only be wiped out in blood, unless some new, unifying power is brought into Government. No class was ever known to extend a right or share the application of a just principle as long as it could safely retain these exclusively for itself.We have no quarrel with men. They are grand and just and noble in exact proportion as their spiritual nature is exalted. Assure as you live down low to the animal that is in you, will the animal dominate your nature. Woman is the first to recognize the Divine. When God was incarnated in humanity, when the Word was made flesh and born of a woman, the arsenal of Heaven was exhausted to redeem the race....Woman is your last resource, and she will not fail you. I have faith that humanity is to be perfected. Examine the record for yourselves. I do not agree with the view of some of our divines. We find the Creator taking a survey, and man is the only creation he finds imperfect. Therefore a helpmeet is created for him. According to accepted theology the first thing that helpmeet does is to precipitate him into sin. I have unbounded faith in the plans of God and in His ability to carry them out, and when He said He would make a helpmeet I believe He did it, and that Eve helped Adam, gave him an impetus toward perfection, instead of causing him to fall. Man was a noble animal and endowed with intellectual ability, but Eve found him a moral infant and tried to teach him to discriminate between good and evil. That is the first and greatest good which comes to anybody, and Adam, instead of falling down when he ate the apple, rose up. There is no moral or spiritual growth possible without being able to discern good from evil. Adam was an animal superior to all others that preceded him, but it needed a woman to quicken his spiritual perceptions.Eve having taken it upon herself to teach man to know the difference between good and evil, the responsibility rests upon woman to teach man to choose the good and refuse the evil. She will do this if she has freedom of opportunity.Man has been given schools to develop brain power, and I do not underrate their value. He has nearly entered into his domain as far as the material forces are concerned, but there is a moral and spiritual element in humanity which eludes his grasp in practically everything he undertakes. This lack of the moral element is to-day our greatest danger. We do not ask for the ballot because men are tyrants, but because God has made us the conservators of the race. To-day we are queens without a scepter; the penalty to the nation is that men are largely indifferent to its best interests and many do not vote. Men are under the influence of women during the formative period of their lives, first of their mothers, then of women teachers; how can they do otherwise than underestimate the value of citizenship? How can the young men of this nation be inspired with a love of justice? It is a dangerous thing that the education of citizens is given over to women, unless these teachers have themselves the rights of citizens. How can you expect such women as have addressed you here in this convention to teach the youth to honor a Government which thus dishonors women?The world has never known but one Susan B. Anthony. God and the world needed her and God gave her to the world and to humanity. The next Statue of Liberty will have her features. Of all the newspaper criticisms and remarks which have been made about her I read one the other day which exactly suited me; it called her "that grand old champion of progress."The women are coming and the men will be better for their coming. Men say women are not fit to govern because they can not fight. When men live upon a very low plane so there is only one way to manage them and that is to knock them on the head, that is true. It probably was true of government in the beginning, but we are to grow up out of this low state.When we reach the highest development, moral and spiritual forces will govern. That women can and do govern even in our present undeveloped condition is shown by the fact that three-fourths of our educators are women. I remember when it used to be said, "You can not put the boys and girls into the hands of women, because they can not thrash them." To-day brute force is almost entirely eliminated from our schools. That women should not take part in government because they can not fight was probably true in ages gone by when governments were maintained by brute force, but it does not obtain in a government ruled by public opinion expressed on a little piece of paper. Women as a class do not fight, and that is the reason they are needed to introduce into government a power of another kind, the power with which women govern their children and their husbands, that beautiful law of love which is to be the only thing that remains forever....Our statesmen are doubting the success of self-government. They say universal suffrage is a failure, forgetting that we have never had universal suffrage. The majority of the race has never expressed its sense in government. We are a living falsehood when we compare the basic principles of our Government with things as they are now. It is becoming a common expression, "The voice of the people is not the voice of God." If you do not find God in the voice of the people you can not find him anywhere. It is said, "Power inheres in the people," and the nation is shorn of half its power for progress as long as the ballot is not in the hands of women.What has caused heretofore the downfall of nations? The lack of morality in government. It will eat out the life of a nation as it does the heart of an individual. This question of woman's equal rights, equal duties, equal responsibilities, is the greatest which has come before us. The destiny of the whole race is comprised in four things: Religion, education, morals, politics. Woman is a religious being; she is becoming educated; she has a high code of morals; she will yet purify politics.I want to impress upon the audience this thought, that every man is a direct factor in the legislation of this land. Every woman is not a direct factor, but yet is more or less responsible for every evil existing in the community. I have nothing but pity for that woman who can fold her hands and say she has all the rights she wants. How can she think of the great problem God has given us to solve—to redeem the race from superstition and crime—and not want to put her hand to the wheel of progress and help move the world?

I will ask the American question "will it pay" to enfranchise the women of this nation—I will not say republic? The world has never been blessed with a republic. Those who think this is a narrow struggle for woman's rights have never conceived the height, length and breadth of this momentous question.

The purpose of divinity is enunciated in that it is said He would create humanity in His image. The purpose of the Creator is that the two are to have dominion; woman is included in the original grant. Free she must be before you yourselves will be free. The highest form of development is to govern one's self. No man governs himself who practices injustice to another....

We have passed through one Gethsemane because of our refusal to co-operate with the Deity in His purpose to establish justice and liberty on this continent. It took a hundred years and a Civil War to evolve the principle in our nation that all men were created free and equal. Will it require another century and another Civil War before there is secured to humanity the God-given inalienable right to "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness?" The most superficial observer can see elements at work, a confusion of forces, that can only be wiped out in blood, unless some new, unifying power is brought into Government. No class was ever known to extend a right or share the application of a just principle as long as it could safely retain these exclusively for itself.

We have no quarrel with men. They are grand and just and noble in exact proportion as their spiritual nature is exalted. Assure as you live down low to the animal that is in you, will the animal dominate your nature. Woman is the first to recognize the Divine. When God was incarnated in humanity, when the Word was made flesh and born of a woman, the arsenal of Heaven was exhausted to redeem the race....

Woman is your last resource, and she will not fail you. I have faith that humanity is to be perfected. Examine the record for yourselves. I do not agree with the view of some of our divines. We find the Creator taking a survey, and man is the only creation he finds imperfect. Therefore a helpmeet is created for him. According to accepted theology the first thing that helpmeet does is to precipitate him into sin. I have unbounded faith in the plans of God and in His ability to carry them out, and when He said He would make a helpmeet I believe He did it, and that Eve helped Adam, gave him an impetus toward perfection, instead of causing him to fall. Man was a noble animal and endowed with intellectual ability, but Eve found him a moral infant and tried to teach him to discriminate between good and evil. That is the first and greatest good which comes to anybody, and Adam, instead of falling down when he ate the apple, rose up. There is no moral or spiritual growth possible without being able to discern good from evil. Adam was an animal superior to all others that preceded him, but it needed a woman to quicken his spiritual perceptions.

Eve having taken it upon herself to teach man to know the difference between good and evil, the responsibility rests upon woman to teach man to choose the good and refuse the evil. She will do this if she has freedom of opportunity.

Man has been given schools to develop brain power, and I do not underrate their value. He has nearly entered into his domain as far as the material forces are concerned, but there is a moral and spiritual element in humanity which eludes his grasp in practically everything he undertakes. This lack of the moral element is to-day our greatest danger. We do not ask for the ballot because men are tyrants, but because God has made us the conservators of the race. To-day we are queens without a scepter; the penalty to the nation is that men are largely indifferent to its best interests and many do not vote. Men are under the influence of women during the formative period of their lives, first of their mothers, then of women teachers; how can they do otherwise than underestimate the value of citizenship? How can the young men of this nation be inspired with a love of justice? It is a dangerous thing that the education of citizens is given over to women, unless these teachers have themselves the rights of citizens. How can you expect such women as have addressed you here in this convention to teach the youth to honor a Government which thus dishonors women?

The world has never known but one Susan B. Anthony. God and the world needed her and God gave her to the world and to humanity. The next Statue of Liberty will have her features. Of all the newspaper criticisms and remarks which have been made about her I read one the other day which exactly suited me; it called her "that grand old champion of progress."

The women are coming and the men will be better for their coming. Men say women are not fit to govern because they can not fight. When men live upon a very low plane so there is only one way to manage them and that is to knock them on the head, that is true. It probably was true of government in the beginning, but we are to grow up out of this low state.

When we reach the highest development, moral and spiritual forces will govern. That women can and do govern even in our present undeveloped condition is shown by the fact that three-fourths of our educators are women. I remember when it used to be said, "You can not put the boys and girls into the hands of women, because they can not thrash them." To-day brute force is almost entirely eliminated from our schools. That women should not take part in government because they can not fight was probably true in ages gone by when governments were maintained by brute force, but it does not obtain in a government ruled by public opinion expressed on a little piece of paper. Women as a class do not fight, and that is the reason they are needed to introduce into government a power of another kind, the power with which women govern their children and their husbands, that beautiful law of love which is to be the only thing that remains forever....

Our statesmen are doubting the success of self-government. They say universal suffrage is a failure, forgetting that we have never had universal suffrage. The majority of the race has never expressed its sense in government. We are a living falsehood when we compare the basic principles of our Government with things as they are now. It is becoming a common expression, "The voice of the people is not the voice of God." If you do not find God in the voice of the people you can not find him anywhere. It is said, "Power inheres in the people," and the nation is shorn of half its power for progress as long as the ballot is not in the hands of women.

What has caused heretofore the downfall of nations? The lack of morality in government. It will eat out the life of a nation as it does the heart of an individual. This question of woman's equal rights, equal duties, equal responsibilities, is the greatest which has come before us. The destiny of the whole race is comprised in four things: Religion, education, morals, politics. Woman is a religious being; she is becoming educated; she has a high code of morals; she will yet purify politics.

I want to impress upon the audience this thought, that every man is a direct factor in the legislation of this land. Every woman is not a direct factor, but yet is more or less responsible for every evil existing in the community. I have nothing but pity for that woman who can fold her hands and say she has all the rights she wants. How can she think of the great problem God has given us to solve—to redeem the race from superstition and crime—and not want to put her hand to the wheel of progress and help move the world?

Mrs. Hannah Whitall Smith (Penn.) pronounced the benediction at the closing session.

Sixteen States were represented at this Nineteenth convention, and reports were sent from many more. Mrs. Sewall, chairman of the executive committee, presented a comprehensive report of the past year's work, which included appeals to many gatherings of religious bodies. Conventions had been held in each congressional district of Kansas and Wisconsin. She referred particularly to the completion of the last of the three volumes of the History of Woman Suffrage by Miss Anthony, Mrs. Stanton and Mrs. Gage. An elaborate plan of work was adopted for the coming year, which included the placing of this History in public libraries, a continuation of the appeals to religious assemblies, the appointment of delegates to all of the approaching national political conventions, and the holding by each vice-president of a series of conventions in the congressional districts of her State. It was especially desired that arrangements should be made for the enrollment in every State of the women who want to vote, and Mrs. Colby was appointed to mature a suitable plan.

Among the extended resolutions adopted were the following:

Whereas, For the first time a vote has been taken in the Senate of the United States on an amendment to the National Constitution enfranchising women; andWhereas, Nearly one-third of the Senators voted for the amendment; therefore,Resolved, That we rejoice in this evidence that our demand is forcing itself upon the attention and action of Congress, and that when a new Congress shall have assembled, with new men and new ideas, we may hope to change this minority into a majority.Whereas, The Anti-Polygamy bill passed by both Houses of Congress provides for the disfranchisement of the non-polygamous women of Utah; andWhereas, The women thus sought to be disfranchised have been for years in the peaceable exercise of the ballot, and no charge is made against them of any crime by reason of which they should lose their vested rights; therefore,Resolved, That this association recognizes in these measures a disregard of individual rights which is dangerous to the liberties of all; since to establish the precedent that the ballot may be taken away is to threaten the permanency of our republican form of government.Resolved, That we call the attention of the working women of the country to the fact that a disfranchised class is always an oppressed class and that only through the protection of the ballot can they secure equal pay for equal work.Resolved, That we recognize as hopeful signs of the times theindorsement of woman suffrage by the Knights of Labor in national assembly, and by the National Woman's Christian Temperance Union, and that we congratulate these organizations upon their recognition of the fact that the ballot in the hands of woman is necessary for their success.Resolved, That we extend our sympathy to our beloved president, in the recent death of her husband, Henry B. Stanton; and we recall with gratitude the fact that he was one of the earliest and most consistent advocates of human liberty.

Whereas, For the first time a vote has been taken in the Senate of the United States on an amendment to the National Constitution enfranchising women; and

Whereas, Nearly one-third of the Senators voted for the amendment; therefore,

Resolved, That we rejoice in this evidence that our demand is forcing itself upon the attention and action of Congress, and that when a new Congress shall have assembled, with new men and new ideas, we may hope to change this minority into a majority.

Whereas, The Anti-Polygamy bill passed by both Houses of Congress provides for the disfranchisement of the non-polygamous women of Utah; and

Whereas, The women thus sought to be disfranchised have been for years in the peaceable exercise of the ballot, and no charge is made against them of any crime by reason of which they should lose their vested rights; therefore,

Resolved, That this association recognizes in these measures a disregard of individual rights which is dangerous to the liberties of all; since to establish the precedent that the ballot may be taken away is to threaten the permanency of our republican form of government.

Resolved, That we call the attention of the working women of the country to the fact that a disfranchised class is always an oppressed class and that only through the protection of the ballot can they secure equal pay for equal work.

Resolved, That we recognize as hopeful signs of the times theindorsement of woman suffrage by the Knights of Labor in national assembly, and by the National Woman's Christian Temperance Union, and that we congratulate these organizations upon their recognition of the fact that the ballot in the hands of woman is necessary for their success.

Resolved, That we extend our sympathy to our beloved president, in the recent death of her husband, Henry B. Stanton; and we recall with gratitude the fact that he was one of the earliest and most consistent advocates of human liberty.

Thanks were extended to the United States Senators who voted for a Sixteenth Amendment. A committee was appointed, Mrs. Blake, chairman, to wait upon President Grover Cleveland and protest against the threatened disfranchising of the women of Washington Territory; also to secure a hearing before the proper congressional committee in reference to the Edmunds-Tucker Bill, which proposed to disfranchise both the Gentile and Mormon women of Utah. The usual large number of letters were received.[63]

The following letter was read from ex-United States Treasurer F. E. Spinner, the first official to employ women:

I am eighty-five years old, and I can no longer look forward for future earthly happiness. All my joys are now retrospective, and in the long vista of years that I constantly look back upon, there is no time that affords me more pleasure than that when I was in the Treasury of the United States. The fact that I was instrumental in introducing women to employment in the offices of the Government, gives me more real satisfaction than all the other deeds of my life.

A committee consisting of the national board and chairman of the executive committee was appointed to arrange for a great international meeting the next year.

On the opening day of this convention a vote on woman suffrage was taken in the United States Senate as described in the preceding chapter; at its close a telegram was received that a Municipal Suffrage Bill had been passed by the Kansas Legislature; and its members separated with the consciousness that two distinctly progressive steps had been taken.

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