Debate on Woman Suffrage in the Senate of the United States, · Chapter 4Woman Suffrage (4)
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If they do not turn out in the end to be men who respect woman, who will protect and defend her in the exercise of every one of her God-given rights, it is because she has failed in her duty toward them; has not been taught to comprehend her own power and to use it to its best ends. For women to seek to control men by the power of suffrage is like David essaying the armor of Saul. What woman needs is her own sheepskin sling and her few smooth pebbles from the bed of the brook, and then let her go forth in the name of the Lord God of Hosts, and a victory as sure and decisive as that of the shepherd of Israel awaits her.
Again, in chapter 4, entitled "The Power of the Home," the author says, in substance: It is, perhaps, of minor consequence that women should have felt themselves emancipated from buttons and bread making; but that they should have learned to look in the least degree slightingly upon the great duties of women as lovers of husbands, as lovers of children, as the fountain and source of what is highest and purest and holiest, and not less of what is homely and comfortable and satisfying in the home, is a serious misfortune. Women can hardly be said to have lost, perhaps what they have so rarely in any age generally attained, that dignity which knows how to command, united with a sweetness which seems all the while to be complying, the power, supple and strong, which rescues the character of the ideal woman from the charge of weakness, and at the same time exhibits its utmost of grace and fascination.
But that of late years the gift has not been cultivated, has not, in fact, thrown out such natural off-shoots as gave grace and glory to some earlier social epochs, must be evident, it would seem, to any thoughtful observer.
If, instead of trying to grasp more material power, women would pursue those studies and investigations which tend to make them familiar with what science teaches concerning the influence of the mother and the home upon the child; of how completely the Creator in giving the genesis of the human race into the hands of woman has made her not only capable of, but responsible for, the regeneration of the world; if they would reflect that nature by making man the bond slave of his passions has put the lever into the hands of woman by which she can control him, and if they would learn to use these powers, not as bad women do for vile and selfish ends, but as the mothers of the race ought, for pure, holy, and redemptive purposes, then would the sphere of women be enlarged to some purpose; the atmosphere of the home would be purified and vitalized, and the work of redeeming man from his vices would be hopefully begun.
The following thoughts are also from the same source: Is this emancipation of woman, if that is the proper phrase for it, a final end, or only the means to an end? Are women to be as the outcome of it emancipated from their world-old sphere of marriage and motherhood, and control of the moral and spiritual destinies of the race, or are they to be emancipated, in order to the proper fulfillment of these functions? It would seem that most of the advanced women of the day would answer the first of these questions affirmatively. Women, I think it has been authoritatively stated, are to be emancipated in order that they may become fully developed human beings, something broader and stronger, something higher and finer, more delicate, more aesthetic, more generally rarefied and sublimated than the old-fashioned type of womanhood, the wife and the mother.
And the result of the woman movement seems more or less in a line thus far with this theoretic aim. Of advanced women a less proportion are inclined to marry than of the old-fashioned type; of those who do marry a great proportion are restless in marriage bonds or seek release from them, while of those who do remain in married life many bear no children, and few, indeed, become mothers of large families. The woman's vitality is concentrated in the brain and fructifies more in intellectual than in physical forms.
Now, women who do not marry are one of two things; either they belong to a class which we shrink from naming or they become old maids.
An old maid may be in herself a very useful and commendable person and a valuable member of society; many are all this. But she has still this sad drawback, she can not perpetuate herself; and since all history and observation go to prove that the great final end of creation, whatever it may be, can only be achieved through the perpetuity and increasing progress of the race, it follows that unmarried woman is not the most necessary, the indispensable type of woman. If there were no other class of females left upon the earth but the women who do not bear children, then the world would be a failure, creation would be nonplussed.
If, then, the movement for the emancipation of woman has for its final end the making of never so fine a quality, never so sublimated a sort of non-child-bearing women, it is an absurdity upon the face of it.
From the standpoint of the Chimney Corner it appears that too many even of the most gifted and liberal-minded of the leaders in the woman's rights movement have not yet discovered this flaw in their logic. They seek to individualize women, not seeing, apparently, that individualized women, old maids, and individualized men, old bachelors, though they may be useful in certain minor ways, are, after all, to speak with the relentlessness of science, fragmentary and abortive, so far as the great scheme of the universe is concerned, and often become, in addition, seriously detrimental to the right progress of society. The man and woman united in marriage form the unit of the race; they alone rightly wield the self-perpetuating power upon which all human progress depends; without which the race itself must perish, the universe become null.
Reaching this point of the argument, it becomes evident that while the development of the individual man or individual woman is no doubt of great importance, since, as Margaret Fuller has justly said, "there must be units before there can be union," it is chiefly so because of their relation to each other. Their character should be developed with a view to their future union with each other, and not to be independent of it. When the leaders of the woman's movement fully realize this, and shape their course accordingly, they will have made a great advance both in the value of their work and its claim upon public sympathy. Moreover, they will have reached a point from which it will be possible for them to investigate reform and idealize the relations existing between men and women.
Mr. President, it is no part of my purpose in any manner whatever to speak disrespectfully of the large number of intelligent ladies, sometimes called strong-minded, who are constantly going before the public, agitating this question of female suffrage. While some of them may, as is frequently charged, be courting notoriety, I have no doubt they are generally earnestly engaged in a work which, in their opinion, would better their condition and would do no injury to society.
In all this, however, I believe they are mistaken.
I think the mental and physical structure of the sexes, of itself, sufficiently demonstrates the fact that the sterner, more laborious, and more difficult duties of society are to be performed by the male sex; while the more delicate duties of life, which require less physical strength, and the proper training of youth, with the proper discharge of domestic duties, belong to the female sex. Nature has so arranged it that the male sex can not attend properly to the duties assigned by the law of nature to the female sex, and that the female sex can not discharge the more rigorous duties required of the male sex.
This movement is an attempt to reverse the very laws of our being, and to drag woman into an arena for which she is not suited, and to devolve upon her onerous duties which the Creator never intended that she should perform.
While the husband discharges the laborious and fatiguing duties of important official positions, and conducts political campaigns, and discharges the duties connected with the ballot-box, or while he bears arms in time of war, or discharges executive or judicial duties, or the duties of juryman, requiring close confinement and many times great mental fatigue; or while the husband in a different sphere of life discharges the laborious duties of the plantation, the workshop, or the machine shop, it devolves upon the wife to attend to the duties connected with home life, to care for infant children, and to train carefully and properly those who in the youthful period are further advanced towards maturity.
The woman with the infant at the breast is in no condition to plow on the farm, labor hard in the workshop, discharge the duties of a juryman, conduct causes as an advocate in court, preside in important cases as a judge, command armies as a general, or bear arms as a private. These duties, and others of like character, belong to the male sex; while the more important duties of home, to which I have already referred, devolve upon the female sex. We can neither reverse the physical nor the moral laws of our nature, and as this movement is an attempt to reverse these laws, and to devolve upon the female sex important and laborious duties for which they are not by nature physically competent, I am not prepared to support this bill.
My opinion is that a very large majority of the American people, yes, a large majority of the female sex, oppose it, and that they act wisely in doing so. I therefore protest against its passage.
Mr. DOLPH. Mr. President, I shall not detain the Senate long. I do not feel satisfied when a measure so important to the people of this country and to humanity is about to be submitted to a vote of the Senate to remain wholly silent.
The pending question is upon the adoption of a joint resolution in the usual form submitting to the legislatures of the several States of the Union for their ratification an additional article as an amendment to the Federal Constitution, which is as follows:
ARTICLE—,
SECTION I. 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.
SEC. 2. The Congress shall have power, by appropriate legislation, to enforce the provisions of this article.
Fortunately for the perpetuity of our institutions and the prosperity of the people, the Federal Constitution contains a provision for its own amendment. The framers of that instrument foresaw that time and experience, the growth of the country and the consequent expansion of the Government, would develop the necessity for changes in it, and they therefore wisely provided in Article V as follows:
The Congress, whenever two-thirds of both Houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose amendments to this Constitution, or, on the application of the Legislatures of two-thirds of the several States, shall call a convention for proposing amendments, which in either case shall be valid to all intents and purposes, as part of this Constitution, when ratified by the Legislatures of three-fourths of the several States, or by conventions in three-fourths thereof, as the one or the other mode of ratification may be proposed by the Congress.
Under this provision, at the first session of the First Congress, ten amendments were submitted to the Legislatures of the several States, in due time ratified by the constitutional number of States, and became a part of the Constitution. Since then there have been added to the Constitution by the same process five different articles.
To secure an amendment to the Constitution under this article requires the concurrent action of two-thirds of both branches of Congress and the affirmative action of three-fourths of the States. Of course Congress can refuse to submit a proposed amendment to the Legislatures of the several States, no matter how general the demand for such submission may be, but I am inclined to believe with the senior Senator from New Hampshire [Mr. BLAIR], in the proposition submitted by him in a speech he made early in the present session upon the pending resolution, that the question as to whether this resolution shall be submitted to the Legislatures of the several States for ratification does not involve the right or policy of the proposed amendment. I am also inclined to believe with him that should the demand by the people for the submission by Congress to the Legislatures of the several States of a proposed amendment become general it would he the duty of the Congress to submit such amendment irrespective of the individual views of the members of Congress, and thus give the people through their Legislative Assemblies power to pass upon the question as to whether or not the Constitution should be amended. At all events, for myself, I should not hesitate to vote to submit for ratification by the Legislatures of the several States an amendment to the Constitution although opposed to it if I thought the demand for it justified such a course.
But I shall vote for the pending joint resolution because I am in favor of the proposed amendment. I have been for many years convinced that the demand made by women for the right of suffrage is just, and that of all the distinctions which have been made between citizens in the laws which confer or regulate suffrage the distinction of sex is the least defensible.
I am not going to discuss the question at length at this time. The arguments for and against woman suffrage have been often stated in this Chamber, and are pretty fully set forth in the majority and minority reports of the Senate committee upon the pending joint resolution. The arguments in its favor were fully stated by the senior Senator from New Hampshire in his able speech upon the question before alluded to, and now the objections to it have been forcibly and elaborately presented by the senior Senator from Georgia [Mr. BROWN]. I could not expect by anything I could say to change a single vote in this body, and the public is already fully informed upon the question, as the arguments in favor of woman suffrage have been voiced in every hamlet in the land with great ability. No question in this country has been more ably discussed than this has been by the women themselves.
I do not think a single objection which is made to woman suffrage is tenable. No one will contend but that women have sufficient capacity to vote intelligently.
Sir, sacred and profane history is full of the records of great deeds by women. They have ruled kingdoms, and, my friend from Georgia to the contrary notwithstanding, they have commanded armies. They have excelled in statecraft, they have shone in literature, and, rising superior to their environments and breaking the shackles with which custom and tyranny have bound them, they have stood side by side with men in the fields of the arts and the sciences.
If it were a fact that woman is intellectually inferior to man, which I do not admit, still that would be no reason why she should not be permitted to participate in the formation and control of the Government to which she owes allegiance. If we are to have as a test for the exercise of the right of suffrage a qualification based upon intelligence, let it be applied to women and to men alike. If it be admitted that suffrage is a right, that is the end of controversy; there can no longer be any argument made against woman suffrage, because, if it is her right, then, if there were but one poor woman in all the United States demanding the right of suffrage, it would be tyranny to refuse the demand.
But our friends say that suffrage is not a right; that it is a matter of grace only; that it is a privilege which is conferred upon or withheld from individual members of society by society at pleasure. Society as here used means man's government, and the proposition assumes the fact that men have a right to institute and control governments for themselves and for women. I admit that in the governments of the world, past and present, men as a rule have assumed to be the ruling classes; that they have instituted governments from participation in which they have excluded women; that they have made laws for themselves and for women, and as a rule have themselves administered them; but that the provisions conferring or regulating suffrage in the constitutions and laws of governments so constituted determined the question of the right of suffrage can not be maintained.
Let us suppose, if we can, a community separated from all other communities, having no organized government, owing no allegiance to any existing governments, without any knowledge of the character of present or past governments, so that when they come to form a government for themselves they can do so free from the bias or prejudice of custom or education, composed of an equal number of men and women, having equal property rights to be defined and to be protected by law. When such community came to institute a government—and it would have an undoubted right to institute a government for itself, and the instinct of self-preservation would soon lead them to do so—will my friend from Georgia tell me by what right, human or divine, the male portion of that community could exclude the female portion, although equal in number and having equal property rights with the men, from participation in the formation of such government and in the enactment of laws for the government of the community? I understand the Senator, if he should answer, would say that he believes the Author of our existence, the Ruler of the universe, has given different spheres to man and woman. Admit that; and still neither in nature nor in the revealed will of God do I find anything to lead me to believe that the Creator did not intend that a woman should exercise the right of suffrage.
During the consideration by this body at the last session of the bill to admit Washington Territory into the Union, referring to the fact that in that Territory woman had been enfranchised, I briefly submitted my views on this subject, which I ask the Secretary to read, so that it may be incorporated in my remarks.
The Secretary read as follows:
Mr. President, there is another matter which I consider pertinent to this discussion, and of too much importance to be left entirely unnoticed on this occasion. It is something new in our political history. It is full of hope for the women of this country and of the world, and full of promise for the future of republican institutions. I refer to the fact that in Washington Territory the right of suffrage has been extended to women of proper age, and that the delegates to the constitutional convention to be held under the provisions of this bill, should it become a law, will, under existing laws of the Territory, be elected by its citizens without distinction as to sex, and the constitution to be submitted to the people will be passed upon in like manner.
I do not intend to discuss the question of woman suffrage upon this occasion, and I refer to it mainly for the purpose of directing attention to the advanced position which the people of this Territory have taken upon this question. I do not believe the proposition so often asserted that suffrage is a political privilege only, and not a natural right. It is regulated by the constitution and laws of a State I grant, but it needs no argument, it appears to me, to show that a constitution and laws adopted and enacted by a fragment of the whole body of the people, but binding alike on all, is a usurpation of the powers of government.
Government is but organized society. Whatever its form, it has its origin in the necessities of mankind and is indispensable for the maintenance of civilized society. It is essential to every government that it should represent the supreme power of the State, and be capable of subjecting the will of its individual citizens to its authority. Such a government can only derive its just powers from the consent of the governed, and can be established only under a fundamental law which is self-imposed. Every citizen of suitable age and discretion who is to be subject to such a government has, in my judgment, a natural right to participate in its formation. It is a significant fact that should Congress pass this bill and authorize the people of Washington Territory to frame a State constitution and organize a State government, the fundamental law of the State will be made by all the citizens of the State to be subject to it, and not by one-half of them. And we shall witness the spectacle of a State government founded in accordance with the principles of equality, and have a State at last with a truly republican form of government.
The fathers of the Republic enunciated the doctrine "that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." It is strange that any one in this enlightened age should be found to contend that this declaration is true only of men, and that a man is endowed by his Creator with inalienable rights not possessed by a woman. The lamented Lincoln immortalized the expression that ours is a Government "of the people, by the people, and for the people," and yet it is far from that. There can be no government by the people where one-half of them are allowed no voice in its organization and control. I regard the struggle going on in this country and elsewhere for the enfranchisement of women as but a continuation of the great struggle for human liberty which has, from the earliest dawn of authentic history, convulsed nations, rent kingdoms, and drenched battlefields with human blood. I look upon the victories which have been achieved in the cause of woman's enfranchisement in Washington Territory and elsewhere as the crowning victories of all which have been won in the long-continued, still-continuing contest between liberty and oppression, and as destined to exert a greater influence upon the human race than any achieved upon the battlefield in ancient or modern times.
Mr. DOLPH. Mr. President, the movement for woman suffrage has passed the stage of ridicule. The pending joint resolution may not pass during this Congress, but the time is not far distant when in every State of the Union and in every Territory women will be admitted to an equal voice in the government, and that will be done whether the Federal Constitution is amended or not. The first convention demanding suffrage for women was held at Seneca Falls, in the State of New York, in 1848. To-day in three of the Territories of the Union women enjoy full suffrage, in a large number of States and Territories they are entitled to vote at school meetings, and in all the States and Territories there is a growing sentiment in favor of this measure which will soon compel respectful consideration by the law-making power.
No measure in this country involving such radical changes in our institutions and fraught with so great consequences to this country and to humanity has made such progress as the movement for woman suffrage. Denunciation will not much longer answer for arguments by the opponents of this measure. The portrayal of the evils to flow from woman suffrage such as we have heard pictured to-day by the Senator from Georgia, the loss of harmony between husband and wife, and the consequent instability of the marriage relation, the neglect of husband and children by wives and mothers for the performance of their political duties, in short the incapacitating of women for wives and mothers and companions, will not much longer serve to frighten the timid. Proof is better than theory. The experiment has been tried and the predicted evils to flow from it have not followed. On the contrary, if we can believe the almost universal testimony, everywhere where it has been tried it has been followed by the most beneficial results.
In Washington Territory, since woman was enfranchised, there have been two elections. At the first there were 8,368 votes cast by women out of a total vote of 34,000 and over. At the second election, which was held in November last, out of 48,000 votes cast in the Territory, 12,000 votes were cast by women. The opponents of female suffrage are silenced there. The Territorial conventions of both parties have resolved in favor of woman suffrage, and there is not a proposition, so far as I know in all that Territory, to repeal the law conferring suffrage upon woman.
I desire also to inform my friend from Georgia that since women were enfranchised in Washington Territory nature has continued in her wonted courses. The sun rises and sets; there is seed-time and harvest; seasons come and go. The population has increased with the usual regularity and rapidity. Marriages have been quite as frequent, and divorces have been no more so. Women have not lost their influence for good upon society, but men have been elevated and refined. If we are to believe the testimony which comes from lawyers, physicians, ministers of the gospel, merchants, mechanics, farmers, and laboring men, the united testimony of the entire people of the Territory, the results of woman suffrage there have been all that could be desired by its friends. Some of the results in that Territory have been seen in making the polls quiet and orderly, in awaking a new interest in educational questions and in questions of moral reform, in securing the passage of beneficial laws and the proper enforcement of them; and, as I have said before, in elevating men, and that without injury to the women.
Mr. EUSTIS. Will the Senator allow me to ask him a question?
Mr. DOLPH. The Senator can ask me a question, if he chooses.
Mr. EUSTIS. If it be right and proper to confer the right of suffrage on women, I ask the Senator whether he does not think that women ought to be required to serve on juries?
Mr. DOLPH. I can answer that very readily. It does not necessarily follow that because a woman is permitted to vote and thus have a voice in making the laws by which she is to be governed and by which her property rights are to be determined, she must perform such duty as service upon a jury. But I will inform the Senator that in Washington Territory she does serve upon juries, and with great satisfaction to the judges of the courts and to all parties who desire to see an honest and efficient administration of law.
Mr. EUSTIS. I was aware of the fact that women are required to serve on juries in Washington Territory because they are allowed to vote. I understand that under all State laws those duties are considered correlative. Now, I ask the Senator whether he thinks it is a decent spectacle to take a mother away from her nursing infant and lock her up all night to sit on a jury?
Mr. DOLPH. I intended to say before I reached this point of being interrogated that I not only do not believe that there is a single argument against woman suffrage that is tenable, and I may be prejudiced in the matter, but that there is not a single one that is really worthy of any serious consideration. The Senator from Louisiana is a lawyer, and he knows very well that under such circumstances, a mother with a nursing infant, that fact being made known to the court would be excused; that would be a sufficient excuse. He knows himself, and he has seen it done a hundred times, that for trivial excuses compared to that men have been excused from service on a jury.
Mr. EUSTIS. I will ask the Senator whether he knows that under the laws of Washington Territory that is a legal excuse from serving on a jury?
Mr. DOLPH. I am not prepared to state that it is; but there is no question in the world but that any judge, that fact being made known, would excuse a woman from attendance upon a jury. No special authority would be required. I will state further that I have not learned that there has been any serious objection on the part of any woman summoned for jury service in that Territory to perform that duty. I have not learned that it has worked to the disadvantage of any family in the Territory; but I do know that the judges of the courts have taken especial pains to commend the women who have been called to serve upon juries for the manner in which they have discharged their duty.