The Collected Works. Elizabeth Cady Stanton
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"You said last night, that the property of the wife passed to the husband, even to his sixteenth cousin! Will you correct your error? And oblige
A Buckeye."
I should be extremely happy to oblige the gentleman, but having committed no error there is nothing to correct; and I do not, therefore, see that I can in conscience comply with his request. I am, however, exceedingly thankful for any expression of interest from that quarter. There are other laws which might be mentioned, which really give woman an apparent advantage over man; yet, having no relevancy to the subject in the petition, we did not see fit to introduce them. One of these is, that no woman shall be subject to arrest and imprisonment for debt; while no man, that is, no ordinary man, none unless he has a halo of military glory around his brow, is held sacred from civil process of this kind. But this exemption is of very little benefit to woman, since, if the laws were as severe to her as to man, she would seldom risk the penalty. For this there are two very good reasons. One is, that conscious of her inability to discharge obligations of this kind, she has little disposition to run deeply into debt; and the other is, that she has not the credit to do it if she wished! If, however, she does involve herself in this way, the law exempts her from imprisonment. This, perhaps, is offered as a sort of palliation for the disabilities which she suffers in other respects. The only object of the petition is, I believe, that the husband and wife be placed upon a legal and political equality. If the law gives woman an advantage over man, we deprecate it as much as he can. Partiality to either, to the injury of the other, is wrong in principle, and we must therefore oppose it. We do not wish to be placed in the position which the husband now occupies. We do not wish that control over his interests, which he may now exercise over the interests of the wife. We would no sooner intrust this power to woman than to man. We would never place her in authority over her husband.
The question of woman's voting, of the propriety of woman's appearing at the polls, is already settled. See what has been done in Detroit: On the day of the late election, the women went to the offices and stores of gentlemen, asking them if they had voted. If the reply happened to be in the negative, as was often the case, the next question was, "Will you be kind enough to take this vote, sir, and deposit it in the ballot-box for me?" Which was seldom, if ever, refused. And so, many a man voted for the "Maine Law," who would not, otherwise, have voted at all. But this was not all; many women kept themselves in the vicinity of the polls, and when they found a man undecided, they ceased not their entreaties until they had gained him to the Temperance cause. More than this, two women finding an intemperate man in the street, talked to him four hours, before they could get him to promise to vote as they wished. Upon his doing so, they escorted him, one on each side, to the ballot-box, saw him deposit the vote they had given him, and then treated him to a good supper.
Now, this is more than any Woman's Rights advocate ever thought of proposing. Yet no one thinks of saying a word against it, because it was done for temperance. But how much worse would it have been for those women to have gone to the polls with a brother or husband, instead of with this man? Or to have deposited two votes in perhaps five minutes' time, than to have spent four hours in soliciting some other person to give one? Why is it worse to go to the ballot-box with our male friends, than to the church, parties, or picnics, etc.? If a man should control the political principles of his wife, he should also control her religious principles.
Charles C. Burleigh: Among the resolutions which have been acted upon and adopted by this meeting is one which affirms that for man to attempt to fix the sphere of woman, is cool assumption. I purpose to take that sentiment for the text of a few words of remark this evening, for it is just there that I think the whole controversy hinges. It is not so much what is woman's appropriate sphere; it is not so much what she may do and what she may not do, that we have to contend about; as whether one human being or one class of human beings is to fix for another human being, or another class of human beings, the proper field of action and the proper mode of employing the faculties which God has given them. If I understand aright the principles of liberty, just here is the point of controversy, between the despot and the champion of human rights, in any department. Just when one human being assumes to decide for another what is that other's sphere of action, just then despotism begins. Everything else is but the legitimate consequence of this.
I have said it is not so much a matter of controversy what woman may do or may not do. Why, it would be a hard matter to say what has been recognized by men themselves, as the legitimate sphere of woman. We have a great deal of contradiction and opposition nowadays when woman attempts to do this, that, or the other thing, although that very thing has sometime or other, and somewhere or other, been performed or attempted to be performed by woman, with man's approval. If you talk about politics, why, woman's participation in politics is no new thing, is no mere assumption on her part, but has been recognized as right and proper by men.
You have already been told of distinguished women who have borne a very prominent part in politics, both in ancient and modern times, and yet the multitude of men have believed and acknowledged that it was all right; and are now acknowledging it with all the enthusiasm of devoted loyalty. They are now acknowledging it in the case of an Empire on which it has been said that the sun never sets—an Empire, "The morning drumbeat of whose military stations circles the earth with one continued peal of the martial airs of England." It is recognized, too, not by the ignorant and thoughtless only, or the radical and heretical alone, but also by multitudes of educated and pious men. That bench of Bishops, sitting in the House of Lords, receiving its very warrant to act politically, from the hands of a woman, listening to a speech from a woman on the throne, endorses every day the doctrine that a woman may engage in politics.
If you seize the young tree, when it just begins to put forth to the air and sunshine and dews, and bend it in all directions for fear it will not grow in proper shape, do not hold the tree accountable for its distortion. There is no danger that from acorns planted last year, pine trees will grow, if you do not take some special care to prevent it. There is no danger that from an apple will grow an oak, or, from a peach-stone an elm; leave nature to work out her own results, or, in other words, leave God to work out His own purpose, and be not so anxious to intrude yourselves upon Him and to help Him govern the Universe He has made. Some of us have too high an estimation of His goodness and wisdom to be desirous of thrusting ourselves into His government. We are willing to leave the nature of woman to manifest itself in its own aptitudes. Try it. Did one ever trust in God and meet with disappointment? Never! Tyrants always say it is not safe to trust their subjects with freedom. Austria says it is not safe to trust the Hungarian with freedom. Man says woman is not safe in freedom, she will get beyond her sphere.
After having oppressed her for centuries, what wonder if she should rebound, and at the first spring, even manifest that law of reaction somewhat to your inconvenience, and somewhat even beyond the dictates of the wisest judgment. What then? Is the fault to be charged to the removal of the restraint; or is it to be charged to the first imposition of the restraint? The objection of our opponents remind one of the Irishman walking among the bushes just behind his companion, who caught hold of a branch, and passing on, let it fly back into the face of his friend; "Indade I am thankful to ye!" said the injured man, "for taking hold of that same; it a'most knocked the brains out of me body as it was, an' sure, if ye hadn't caught hold of it, it would have kilt me intirely!"
The winds come lashing over your lake, the waters piling upon each other, wave rolling upon wave, and you may say what a pity we could not bridge the lake over with ice, so as to keep down these billows which may rise so high as to submerge us. But stand still! God has fixed the law upon the waters, "thus far shalt thou come"; and as you watch the ever piling floods, it secures their timely downfall. When they come as far as their appointed limits, the combing crest of the wave tells that the hour of safety has arrived, proving that God was wiser than you in writing down laws for His creation. We need not bridge over woman's nature with the ice of conventionalism, for fear she will swell up, aye, and overflow the continent of manhood. There is no danger. Trust to the nature God has given to humanity, and do not except the nature He has given to this portion of humanity.
But I need not dwell upon such an argument before an audience who have witnessed the bearing of women in this Convention. It is a cool, aye, insolent assumption for man to prescribe