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

disfranchisement can be suggested; on the contrary, we believe that they are now entitled to immediate and absolute enfranchisement.

      First: Because their own good demands it. Give woman the ballot and she will have additional means and inducements to a broader and better education, including a knowledge of affairs, of which she will not fail to avail herself to the uttermost; give her the ballot and you add to her means of protection of her person and estate. The ballot is a powerful weapon of defense sorely needed by those too weak to wield any other, and to take it from such and give to those already clothed in strength and fully armed, would appear to be unjust, unfair and unwise to one unaccustomed to the sight. Long usage "sanctions and sanctifies" wrongs and abuses, and causes cruelty to be mistaken for kindness.

      The history of woman is for the most part a history of wrong and outrage. Created the equal companion of man, she early became his slave, and still is so in most parts of the world. In many so-called Christian nations of Europe she is to-day yoked with beasts and is doing the labor of beasts, while her son and husband are serving in the army, protecting the divine right of kings and men to slay and destroy. In the farther East she is still more degraded, being substantially excluded from the world. Man has not been consciously unjust to woman in the past, nor is he now, but he believes that she is in her true sphere, not realizing that he has fixed her sphere, and not God. This is as true of the barbarian as of the Christian, and no more so. If the "unspeakable Turk" should be solicited to open the doors of his harem and let the inmates become free, he would be indignant, doubtless, and would swear by the beard of the Prophet that he never would so degrade lovely woman, who, in her sphere, was intended to be the solace of glorious, superior man.

      Yet, as man advances, woman is elevated, and her elevation in turn advances him. No liberty ever given her has been lost or abused or regretted. Where most has been given she has become best. Liberty never degrades her; slavery always does. For her good, therefore, she needs the ballot.

      Second: Woman's vote is needed for the good of others. Our horizon is misty with apparent dangers. Woman may aid in dispelling them. She is an enemy of foreign war and domestic turmoil; she is a friend of peace and home. Her influence for good in many directions would be multiplied if she possessed the ballot. She desires the homes of the land to be pure and sober; with her help they may become so. Without her what is the prospect in this regard?

      We do not invite woman into the "dirty pool of politics," nor does she intend to enter that pool. Politics is not necessarily unclean; if it is unclean she is not chargeable with the great crime, for crime it is. Politics must be purified or we are lost. To govern this great nation wisely and well is not degrading service; to do it, all the wisdom, ability and patriotism of all the people is required. No great moral force should be unemployed.

      But it is sometimes said that women do not desire the ballot. Some may not; very many do not, perhaps a majority. Such indifference can not affect the right of those who are not indifferent. Some men, for one or other insufficient reason, decline to vote; but no statesman has yet urged general disfranchisement on that account. It may be true, and in our judgment it is, that those individuals who so fail to appreciate the rights and obligations of freemen as to deliberately refuse to vote should be disfranchised and made aliens, but their offense should not be visited on vigilant and patriotic citizens. Neither male nor female suffragists can be forced to use the ballot, and while the individuals of each class may fail to appreciate the privilege or recognize the duty the franchise confers, in the main it will result otherwise.

      The conservative woman who feels that her present duties are as burdensome as she can bear, when she realizes what she can accomplish for her country and for mankind by the ballot, will as reverently thank God for the opportunity and will as zealously discharge her new obligations, as will her more radical sister who has long and wearily labored and fervently prayed for the coming of the day of equality of rights, duties and hopes.

      E. B. Taylor.

       W. P. Hepburn.

       L. B. Caswell.

      I concur in the opinion of the minority that the resolution ought to be adopted.

      A. A. Ranney.

28 John Randolph Tucker, Va.; Nathaniel J. Hammond, Ga.; David B. Culberson, Tex.; Patrick A. Collins, Mass.; George E. Seney, O.; William C. Oates, Ala.; John H. Rogers, Ark.; John R. Eden, Ill.; Risden T. Bennett, N. C.; Ezra B. Taylor, O.; Abraham X. Parker, N. Y.; Ambrose A. Ranney, Mass.; William P. Hepburn, Ia.; John W. Stewart, Vt.; Lucien B. Caswell, Wis.

29 See History of Woman Suffrage, Vol. II, p. 715.

30 This had been done when Miss Anthony voted in Rochester, N. Y., in 1872.

      CHAPTER VI.

       First Discussion and Vote in the U. S. Senate—1887.

       Table of Contents

Although the Senate Select Committee on Woman Suffrage had reported several times in favor of a Sixteenth Amendment to the Federal Constitution which should prohibit disfranchisement on account of sex, and although Thomas W. Palmer, in 1885, had delivered a speech on the question in the Senate, it never had been brought to a discussion and vote.31 Urged by the members of the National Association, and by his own strong convictions as to the justice of the cause, Senator Henry W. Blair (N. H.), on Dec. 8, 1886, called up the following, which he had reported for the majority of the committee on February 2 of that year:

      JOINT RESOLUTION PROPOSING AN AMENDMENT TO THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES EXTENDING THE RIGHT OF SUFFRAGE TO WOMEN.

      Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled (two-thirds of each House concurring therein), That the following article be proposed to the Legislatures of the several States as an amendment to the Constitution of the United States; which, when ratified by three-fourths of the said Legislatures, shall be valid as part of said Constitution, namely:

      Section 1. The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.

      Section 2. The Congress shall have power, by appropriate legislation, to enforce the provisions of this article.

Senator Blair supported this resolution in a long and comprehensive speech, that will be recorded in history as one of the ablest ever made on this subject, in the course of which he said:32

      Upon solemn occasions concerning grave public affairs, and when large numbers of the citizens of the country desire to test the sentiments of the people upon an amendment of the organic law in the manner provided by the provisions of that law, it may well become the duty of Congress to submit the proposition to the amending power, which is the same as that which created the original instrument itself—the electors of the several States. It can hardly be claimed that two-thirds of each branch of Congress must necessarily be convinced that the Constitution should be amended, before it submits the same to the judgment of the States.

      If there be any principle upon which our form of government is founded, and wherein it is different from aristocracies, monarchies and despotisms, that principle is this: Every human being of mature powers, not disqualified by ignorance, vice or crime, is the equal of and is entitled to all the rights and privileges which belong to any other human being under the law.

      The independence, equality and dignity of all human souls is the fundamental assertion of those who believe in what we call human freedom. But we are informed that women are represented by men. This can not reasonably be claimed unless it first be shown that their consent has been given to such representation, or that they