The Complete History of the Women's Suffrage Movement in U.S.. Jane Addams
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reason, and, like gold doubly refined, will come out purer and brighter from the fiery ordeal. The young man, who, I hope, is present, based his principal argument against us, "Because," said he, "you can bring no authority from revelation or from nature." I will not enter into an inquiry as to what he meant by these terms, but I will show him the revelation from which we derive our authority, and the nature in which it is written in living characters. It is true we do not go to revelations written in books; but ours is older than all books, and whatever of good there is in any written revelations, must necessarily agree with ours, or it is not true, for ours only is the true revelation, based in nature and in life. That revelation is no less than the living, breathing, thinking, feeling, acting revelation manifested in the nature of woman. In her manifold powers, capacities, needs, hopes, and aspirations, lies her title-deed, and whether that revelation was written by nature or nature's God, matters not, for here it is. No one can disprove it. No one can bring an older, broader, higher, and more sacred basis for human rights. Do you tell me that the Bible is against our rights? Then I say that our claims do not rest upon a book written no one knows when, or by whom. Do you tell me what Paul or Peter says on the subject? Then again I reply that our claims do not rest on the opinions of any one, not even on those of Paul and Peter, for they are older than they. Books and opinions, no matter from whom they came, if they are in opposition to human rights, are nothing but dead letters. I have shown you that we derive our claims from humanity, from revelation, from nature, and from your Declaration of Independence; all proclaim our right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; and having life, which fact I presume you do not question, then we demand all the rights and privileges society is capable of bestowing, to make life useful, virtuous, honorable, and happy.
But I am told that woman needs not as extensive an education as man, as her place is only the domestic sphere; only the domestic sphere! Oh, how utterly ignorant is society of the true import of that term! Go to your legislative halls, and your Congress; behold those you have sent there to govern you, and as you find them high or low, great or small, noble or base, you can trace it directly or indirectly to the domestic sphere.
The wisest in all ages have acknowledged that the most important period in human education is in childhood—that period when the plastic mind may be moulded into such exquisite beauty, that no unfavorable influences shall be able entirely to destroy it—or into such hideous deformity, that it shall cling to it like a thick rust eaten into a highly polished surface, which no after-scouring shall ever be able entirely to efface. This most important part of education is left entirely in the hands of the mother. She prepares the soil for future culture; she lays the foundation upon which a superstructure shall be erected that shall stand as firm as a rock, or shall pass away like the baseless fabric of a vision, and leave not a wreck behind. But the mother can not give what she does not possess; weakness can not impart strength.
Sisters, you have a duty to perform—and duty, like charity, begins at home. In the name of your poor, vicious, outcast, down-trodden sister! in the name of her who once was as innocent and as pure as you are! in the name of her who has been made the victim of wrong, injustice, and oppression! in the name of man! in the name of all, I ask you, I entreat you, if you have an hour to spare, a dollar to give, or a word to utter—spare it, give it, and utter it, for the elevation of woman! And when your minister asks you for money for missionary purposes, tell him there are higher, and holier, and nobler missions to be performed at home. When he asks for colleges to educate ministers, tell him you must educate woman, that she may do away with the necessity of ministers, so that they may be able to go to some useful employment. If he asks you to give to the churches (which means to himself) then ask him what he has done for the salvation of woman. When he speaks to you of leading a virtuous life, ask him whether he understands the causes that have prevented so many of your sisters from being virtuous, and have driven them to degradation, sin, and wretchedness. When he speaks to you of a hereafter, tell him to help to educate woman, to enable her to live a life of intelligence, independence, virtue, and happiness here, as the best preparatory step for any other life. And if he has not told you from the pulpit of all these things; if he does not know them; it is high time you inform him, and teach him his duty here in this life.
This subject is deep and vast enough for the wisest heads and purest hearts of the race; it underlies our whole social system. Look to your criminal records—look to your records of mortality, to your cemeteries, peopled by mothers before the age of thirty or forty, and children under the age of five; earnestly and impartially investigate the cause, and you can trace it directly or indirectly to woman's inefficient education; her helpless, dependent position; her inexperience; her want of confidence in her own noble nature, in her own principles and powers, and her blind reliance in man. We ask, then, for woman, an education that shall cultivate her powers, develop, elevate, and ennoble her being, physically, mentally, and morally; to enable her to take care of herself, and she will be taken care of; to protect herself, and she will be protected. But to give woman as full and extensive an education as man, we must give her the same motives. No one gathers keys without a prospect of having doors to unlock. Man does not acquire knowledge without the hope to make it useful and productive; the highest motives only can call out the greatest exertion. There is a vast field of action open to man, and therefore, he is prepared to enter it; widen the sphere of action for woman, throw open to her all the avenues of industry, emolument, usefulness, moral ambition, and true greatness, and you will give her the same noble motives, the same incentives for exertion, application, and perseverance that man possesses—and this can be done only by giving her her legal and political rights—pronounce her the equal of man in all the rights and advantages society can bestow, and she will be prepared to receive and use them, and not before. It would be folly to cultivate her intellect like that of man without giving her the same chances to use it—to give her an industrial avocation without giving her the right to the proceeds of her industry, or to give her the right to the proceeds of her industry without giving her the power to protect the property she may acquire; she must therefore have the legal and political rights, or she has nothing. The ballot-box is the focus of all other rights, it is the pivot upon which all others hang; the legal rights are embraced in it, for if once possessed of the right to the ballot-box, to self-representation, she will see to it that the laws shall be just, and protect her person and her property, as well as that of man. Until she has political rights she is not secure in any she may possess. One legislature may alter some oppressive law, and give her some right, and the next legislature may take it away, for as yet it is only given as an act of generosity, as a charity on the part of man, and not as her right, and therefore it can not be lasting, nor productive of good.
Mothers, women of America! when you hear the subject of Woman's Rights broached, laugh at it and us, ridicule it as much as you please; but never forget, that by the laws of your country, you have no right to your children—the law gives the father as uncontrolled power over the child as it gives the husband over the wife; only the child, when it comes to maturity, the father's control ceases, while the wife never comes to maturity. The father may bequeath, bestow, or sell the child without the consent of the mother. But methinks I hear you say that no man deserving the name of man, or the title of husband and father, could commit such an outrage against the dearest principles of humanity; well, if there are no such men, then the law ought to be annulled, a law against which nature, justice, and humanity revolt, ought to be wiped off from the statute book as a disgrace; and if there are such—which unhappily we all know there are—then there is still greater reason why the laws ought to be changed, for bad laws encourage bad men and make them worse; good men can not be benefited by the existence of bad laws; bad men ought not to be; laws are not made for him who is a law unto himself, but for the lawless. The legitimate object of law is to protect the innocent and inexperienced against the designing and the guilty; we therefore ask every one present to demand of the Legislatures of every State to alter these unjust laws; give the wife an equal right with the husband in the property acquired after marriage; give the mother an equal right with the father in the control of the children; let the wife at the death of the husband remain his heir to the same extent that he would be hers, at her death; let the laws be alike for both, and they are sure to be right; but to have them so, woman must help to make them.
We hear a great deal about the heroism of the battle-field. What is it? Compare it with the heroism of the woman who stands up for the right, and it sinks into utter insignificance. To stand