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

At all events this argument is unworthy of notice unless we are to push it to its logical conclusion, and, for the sake of peace in the family, to prohibit woman absolutely the exercise of free speech and action. Men live with their countrymen and yet disagree with them in politics, religion and ten thousand of the affairs of life, as often the trifling as the important. What harm, then, if woman be allowed her thought and vote upon the tariff, education, temperance, peace, war, and whatsoever else the suffrage decides.

      We are told that no government of which we have authentic history ever gave to women a share in the sovereignty. This is not true, for the annals of monarchies and despotisms have been rendered illustrious by queens of surpassing brilliance and power. But even if it be true that no nation ever enfranchised woman—even so until within one hundred years universal or even general suffrage was unknown among men.

      Has the millennium yet dawned? Is all progress at an end? If that which is should therefore remain, why abolish the slavery of men?

      We are informed that woman does not vote when she has the opportunity. Wherever she has the unrestricted right she exercises it. The records of Wyoming and Washington demonstrate this fact.

      Mr. Blair then quoted the statistics embodied in the report of the committee, showing the slow but sure progress of the enfranchisement of women, and concluded:

      It is sometimes urged against this movement for the submission of a resolution for a National Constitutional Amendment that women should go to the States and fight it out there. But we did not send the colored man to the States. No other amendment touching the general national interest has been left to be fought out by individual action in the separate States....

      We only ask for woman an opportunity to bring her suit in the great court for the amendment of fundamental law. It is impossible for any right mind to escape the impression of solemn responsibility which attaches to our decision. Ridicule and wit of whatever quality are here as much out of place as in the debates upon the Declaration of Independence. We are affirming or denying the right of petition which by all law belongs as much to women as to men....

      Let us by our action to-day indorse, if we do not initiate, a movement which, in the development of our race, shall guarantee liberty to all without distinction of sex, even as our glorious Constitution already grants the suffrage to every male citizen without distinction of color or race.

      As Senator Brown was absent, Senator Cockrell objected to a consideration of the resolution and it was postponed. The minority report of the Select Committee on Woman Suffrage signed by these two Senators consisted wholly of extracts from a series of anonymous articles which had appeared in the Chicago Tribune, entitled "Letters from a Chimney-Corner."

On January 25, 1887, Senator Blair again called up his resolution and a spirited debate followed. Senators Joseph E. Brown (Ga.) and George G. Vest (Mo.) represented the negative; Henry W. Blair (N. H.) and Joseph N. Dolph (Ore.) the affirmative. Senator Brown opened the discussion by presenting, word for word, the report signed by Senator Francis M. Cockrell (Mo.) and himself in 1884. It embodied the stock objections to woman suffrage, practically all in fact which are ever made, and was in part as follows:34

      Mr. President, the joint resolution introduced by my friend, the Senator from New Hampshire, proposing an amendment to the Constitution of the United States, conferring the right to vote upon the women of the United States, is one of paramount importance, as it involves great questions far-reaching in their tendency, which seriously affect the very pillars of our social fabric, which involve the peace and harmony of society, the unity of the family, and much of the future success of our Government....

      I believe that the Creator intended that the sphere of the males and females of our race should be different, and that their duties and obligations, while they differ materially, are equally important and equally honorable, and that each sex is equally well qualified by natural endowments for the discharge of the important duties which pertain to each, and that each sex is equally competent to discharge those duties.

      We find an abundance of evidence, both in the works of nature and in the Divine revelation, to establish the fact that the family properly regulated is the foundation and pillar of society, and is the most important of any other human institution. In the Divine economy it is provided that the man shall be the head of the family, and shall take upon himself the solemn obligation of providing for and protecting the family.

      Man, by reason of his physical strength, and his other endowments and faculties, is qualified for the discharge of those duties that require strength and ability to combat with the sterner realities and difficulties of life. It is not only his duty to provide for and protect the family, but as a member of the community it is also his duty to discharge the laborious and responsible obligations which the family owe to the State, and which obligations must be discharged by the head of the family, until the male members have grown up to manhood and are able to aid in the discharge of those obligations, when it becomes their duty each in turn to take charge of and rear a family, for which he is responsible.

Among other duties which the head of the family owes to the State is military duty in time of war, which he, when able-bodied, is able to discharge and which the female members of the family are unable to discharge.35

He is also under obligation to discharge jury duty,36 and by himself or his representatives to perform his part of the labor necessary to construct and keep in order roads, bridges, streets and all grades of public highways.37 And in this progressive age upon the male sex is devolved the duty of constructing and operating our railroads, and the engines and other rolling stock with which they are operated; of building, equipping and launching shipping and other water craft of every character necessary for the transportation of passengers and freight upon our rivers, our lakes, and upon the high seas.

The labor in our fields, sowing, cultivating and reaping crops must be discharged mainly by the male sex, as the female sex, for want of physical strength, are generally unable to discharge these duties. As it is the duty of the male sex to perform the obligations to the State, to society and to the family, already mentioned, with numerous others that might be enumerated, it is also their duty to aid in the government of the State, which is simply a great aggregation of families.38 Society can not be preserved nor can the people be prosperous without good government. The government of our country is a government of the people, and it becomes necessary that the class of people upon whom the responsibility rests should assemble together and consider and discuss the great questions of governmental policy which from time to time are presented for their decision.

      This often requires the assembling of caucuses in the night time, as well as public assemblages in the daytime. It is a laborious task, for which the male sex is infinitely better fitted than the female sex; and after proper consideration and discussion of the measures that may divide the country from time to time, the duty devolves upon those who are responsible for the government, at times and places to be fixed by law, to meet and by ballot to decide the great questions of government upon which the prosperity of the country depends.

These are some of the active and sterner duties of life to which the male sex is by nature better fitted than the female sex. If in carrying out the policy of the State on great measures adjudged vital such policy should lead to war, either foreign or domestic, it would seem to follow very naturally that those who have been responsible for the management of the State should be the parties to take the hazards and hardships of the struggle.39 Here again man is better fitted by nature for the discharge of the duty—woman is unfit for it.

On the other hand, the Creator has assigned to woman very laborious and responsible duties, by no means less important than those imposed upon the male sex,