The History of the Women's Suffrage: The Flame Ignites. Susan B. Anthony

been and are identified with the agitation for the political emancipation of their sex? Saloons, brothels and gaming-houses might vanish before such an administration; wars avoidable with safety and honor might not be undertaken, and taxes might be diverted to purposes of general sanitation and higher education, but neither in these respects nor in the efforts to lift the bowed and strengthen the weak would the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness be placed in peril. Women have exercised the highest civil powers in all ages of the world—from Zenobia to Victoria—and have exhibited statecraft and military capacity of high degree without detracting from their graces as women or their virtues as mothers....

      The preponderance of women in our churches, our charitable organizations, our educational councils, has been of such use as to suggest the benefit of their incorporation into our voting force to the least observant. A woman who owns railroad or manufacturing or mining stock may vote unquestioned by the side of the brightest business men of our continent, but if she transfers her property into real estate she loses all voice in its control.

      Their abilities, intellectual, physical and political, are as various as ours, and they err who set up any single standard, however lovely, by which to determine the rights, needs and possibilities of the sex. To me the recognition of their capacity for full citizenship is right and desirable, and it only remains to consider whether it is safe, whether it is expedient. To this let experience answer to the extent that the experiment has been made.

      During the first thirty years of the independence of New Jersey, universal suffrage was limited only by a property qualification; but we do not learn that divorces were common, that families were more divided on political than on religious differences, that children were neglected or that patriotism languished, although the first seven years of that experiment were years of decimating war, and the remaining twenty-three of poverty and recuperation—conditions most conducive to discontent and erratic legislation.

      The reports from Wyoming, which I have examined, are uniform in satisfaction with the system, and I do not learn therefrom that women require greater physical strength, fighting qualities or masculinity to deposit a ballot than a letter or visiting card; while in their service as jurors they have exhibited greater courage than their brothers in finding verdicts against desperadoes in accordance with the facts. Governors, judges, officers and citizens unite in praises of the influence of women upon the making and execution of wholesome laws.

      In Washington Territory, last fall, out of a total vote of 40,000 there were 12,000 ballots cast by women, and everywhere friends were rejoiced and opponents silenced as apprehended dangers vanished upon approach. Some of the comments of converted newspaper editors which have reached us are worthy of preservation and future reference. The elections were quiet and peaceable for the first time; the brawls of brutal men gave place to the courtesies of social intercourse; saloons were closed, and nowhere were the ladies insulted or in any way annoyed. Women vote intelligently and safely, and it does not appear that their place is solely at home any more than that the farmer should never leave his farm, the mechanic his shop, the teacher his desk, the clergyman his study, or the professional man his office, for the purpose of expressing his wishes and opinions at the tribunal of the ballot-box.

      To-day—and to a greater extent in the near future—we are confronted with political conditions dangerous to the integrity of our nation. In the unforeseen but constant absorption of immigrants and former bondmen into a vast army of untrained voters, without restrictions as to the intelligence, character or patriotism, many political economists see the material for anarchy and public demoralization. It is claimed that the necessities of parties compel subserviency to the lawless and vicious classes in our cities, and that, without the addition of a counterbalancing element, the enactment and enforcement of wholesome statutes will soon be impossible. Fortunately that needed element is not far to seek. It stands at the door of the Congress urging annexation. In its strivings for justice it has cried aloud in petitions from the best of our land, and more than one-third of the present voters of five States have indorsed its cause. Its advocates are no longer the ridiculed few, but the respected many. A list of the leaders of progressive thought of this generation who espouse and urge this reform would be too long and comprehensive for recital.

      Mr. President, I do not ask the submission of this amendment, nor shall I urge its adoption, because it is desired by a portion of the American women, although in intelligence, property and numbers that portion would seem to have every requisite for the enforcement of their demands; neither are we bound to give undue regard to the timidity and hesitation of that possibly larger portion who shrink from additional responsibilities; but I ask and shall urge it because the nation has need of the co-operation of women in all directions.

      The war power of every government compels, upon occasion, all citizens of suitable age and physique to leave their homes, families and avocations to be merged in armies, whether they be willing or unwilling, craven or bold, patriotic or indifferent, and no one gainsays the right, because the necessities of State require their services. We have passed the harsh stages incident to our permanent institution. We have conquered our independence, conquered the respect of European powers, conquered our neighbors on the western borders, and at vast cost of life and waste have conquered our internal differences and emerged a nation unchallenged from without or within. The great questions of the future conduct of our people are to be economic and social ones. No one doubts the superiority of womanly instincts, and consequent thought in the latter, and the repeated failures and absurdities exhibited by male legislators in the treatment of the former, should give pause to any assertion of superiority there.

      The day has come when the counsel and service of women are required by the highest interests of the State, and who shall gainsay their conscription? We place the ballot in the keeping of immigrants who have grown middle-aged or old in the environment of governments dissimilar to the spirit and purpose of ours, and we do well, because the responsibility accompanying the trust tends to examination, comparison and consequent political education; but we decline to avail ourselves of the aid of our daughters, wives and mothers, who were born and are already educated under our system, reading the same newspapers, books and periodicals as ourselves, proud of our common history, tenacious of our theories of human rights and solicitous for our future progress. Whatever may have been wisest as to the extension of suffrage to this tender and humane class when wars of assertion or conquest were likely to be considered, to-day and to-morrow and thereafter no valid reason seems assignable for longer neglect to avail ourselves of their association.

26 This chapter closes with the speech in favor of woman suffrage by Thomas W. Palmer in the U. S. Senate.

27 The primal object of the National Woman Suffrage Association has been from its foundation to secure the submission by the Congress of a Sixteenth Amendment which shall prohibit the several States from disfranchising United States citizens on account of sex. To this end all State societies should see that senators and members of Congress are constantly appealed to by their constituents to labor for the passage of this amendment by the next Congress.

      Woman suffrage associations in the several States are advised to push the question to a vote in their respective Legislatures. The time for agitation alone has passed, and the time for aggressive action has come. It will be found by a close examination of many State constitutions that by the liberal provisions of their Bill of Rights—often embodied in Article I—the women of the State can be enfranchised without waiting for the tedious and hopeless proviso of a constitutional amendment....

      In States where there has been little or no agitation we recommend the passage of laws granting School Suffrage to women. This first step in politics is an incentive to larger usefulness and aids greatly in familiarizing women with the use of the ballot.

      We do not specially recommend Municipal Suffrage, as we think that the agitation expended for the fractional measure had better be directed towards obtaining the passage of a Full Suffrage Bill, but we leave this to the discretion of the States.

      The acting Vice-President in every State must hold a yearly convention in the capital or some large town. No efficient organization can exist without some such