The Complete History of the Women's Suffrage Movement in U.S.. Jane Addams
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we have simply to say that the writer's prejudices contradict all the facts of our common experience. Women are so pre-eminently fitted for government, that the one fear in all ages among men has been lest by some chance they should be governed by women; and the smaller the man the greater the fear.
Blackstone says "the elements of sovereignty are three: 'Wisdom, Goodness, and Power.'" Admitting for the sake of argument that "Power" in this connection means physical force, the distinctive point of male superiority, and not moral power, which may be equal in both sexes, all must concede the remaining necessary elements to woman as well as man. Who so bold, or blind, as to deny wisdom and goodness, the chief elements of beneficent government, to woman, with the long record of illustrious and saintly characters gilding every page of history before him?
Whatever doubts the women known to the author of "Eumenes" might have had as to their own capacities; the women of to-day do assume to know that they are more capable of self-government than men are, and that they understand the principles that underlie a republic far better than the vast majority of foreigners now crowding our shores, the Right Honorable James Charles Fox to the contrary notwithstanding. Yea, without danger of contradiction, we may say there are women in this nation even now, who understand the political issues of this hour quite as well as those who stand at the head of our government.
We are very apt to accept popular assertions ofttimes repeated as truisms, and in this way man's superiority has passed into a proverb, and the sex in general believe it. When Milton penned the line, "God, thy will, thou mine," and made his Eve thus reverently submissive to her Adam, he little thought of bright girls in the nineteenth century, well versed in science, philosophy, and the languages, sitting in the senior class of a college of the American republic, laughing his male conceit to scorn.
76 The New York Tribune, Feb. 19, 1881, gives the following interesting facts: "William Franklin, the illegitimate son of Benjamin, who was long a resident of New York and hereabout, conducted in person his father's postal system. At Amboy, or Perth Amboy, a little town of once high aristocratic standing, which dozes on the edge of the Jersey hills and overlooks the oyster groves of Prince's Bay, began the Post-Office of North America under John Hamilton in 1694. It was a private patent, and he sold it to the Government. Many years afterward William Franklin settled at the same place, where once his father passed in Hamilton's day a footsore vagrant pressing from Boston to Philadelphia to get bread. There the younger Franklin reared a 'palace,' and lived in it as Governor of New Jersey till his adherence to the Crown, that had done better for him than his father—made him an exile and a captive. He was sent under guard to East Windsor, Conn., and his jail was made in the house of Captain Ebenezer Grant there, of the family of President Grant's ancestors, and he was prohibited the use of pen, ink, and paper—a needless punishment to a man who had delivered so many letters to others."
77 In the New York Observer, 1876.
78 After a diligent search for Mr. James Ross and his promised "interesting chapter of local history," we learned that the author was in his grave, and that from his posthumous papers this valuable document had not yet been exhumed by his literary executor.
79 The following letter contains the sentiments referred to in the text:
Orange, N. J., Dec. 18, 1858.
Mr. Mandeville, Tax Collector, Sir:—Enclosed I return my tax bill, without paying it. My reason for doing so is, that women suffer taxation, and yet have no representation, which is not only unjust to one-half the adult population, but is contrary to our theory of government. For years some women have been paying their taxes under protest, but still taxes are imposed, and representation is not granted. The only course now left us is to refuse to pay the tax. We know well what the immediate result of this refusal must be.
But we believe that when the attention of men is called to the wide difference between their theory of government and its practice, in this particular, they can not fail to see the mistake they now make, by imposing taxes on women, while they refuse them the right of suffrage, and that the sense of justice which is in all good men, will lead them to correct it. Then we shall cheerfully pay our taxes—not till then.
Lucy Stone.
Respectfully,
80 See Washington National Intelligencer for Oct. 15, 1857, and Historical Magazine, Vol. I., page 360.
81 Frank Leslie's Magazine, Feb., 1877.
CHAPTER XIII.
Reminiscences.
BY E. C. S.
The reports of the Conventions held in Seneca Falls and Rochester, N. Y., in 1848, attracted the attention of one destined to take a most important part in the new movement—Susan B. Anthony, who for her courage and executive ability was facetiously called by William Henry Charming, the Napoleon of our struggle. At this time she was teaching in the Academy at Canajoharie, a little village in the beautiful valley of the Mohawk.
"The Woman's Declaration of Independence" issued from those conventions, startled and amused her, and she laughed heartily at the novelty and presumption of the demand. But on returning home to spend her vacation, she was surprised to find that her sober Quaker parents and sisters having attended the Rochester meetings, regarded them as very profitable and interesting, and the demands made as proper and reasonable. She was already interested in the anti-slavery and temperance reforms, and was an active member of an organization called "The Daughters of Temperance," and had spoken a few times in their public meetings. But the new gospel of "Woman's Rights," found a ready response in her mind, and from that time her best efforts have been given to the enfranchisement of woman.
It was in the month of May, of 1851, that I first met Miss Anthony. That was to both of us an eventful meeting, that in a measure henceforth shaped our lives. As our own estimate of ourselves and our friendship may differ somewhat from that taken from an objective point of view, I will give an extract from what a mutual friend wrote of us some years ago:
Miss Susan B. Anthony, a well-known, indefatigable and life-long advocate of temperance, anti-slavery, and woman's rights, has been, since 1851, Mrs. Stanton's intimate associate in reformatory labors. These celebrated women are of about equal ages, but of the most opposite characteristics, and illustrate the theory of counterparts in affection by entertaining for each other a friendship of extraordinary strength.
Mrs. Stanton is a fine writer, but a poor executant; Miss Anthony is a thorough manager, but a poor writer. Both have large brains and great hearts; neither has any selfish ambition for celebrity; but each vies with the other in a noble enthusiasm, for the cause to which they are devoting their lives.
Nevertheless, to describe them critically, I ought to say that opposites though they be, each does not so much supplement the other's difficiencies as augment the other's eccentricities. Thus they often stimulate each other's aggressiveness, and at the same time diminish each other's discretion.
But whatever may be the imprudent utterances of the one, or the impolitic methods of the other, the animating motives of both are evermore as white as the light. The good that they do is by design; the harm by accident. These two women sitting together in their parlors, have for the last thirty years been diligent forgers of all manner of projectiles, from fire works to thunderbolts, and have hurled them with unexpected explosion into the midst of all manner of educational, reformatory, religious, and political