The Complete History of the Women's Suffrage Movement in U.S.. Jane Addams
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woman be the true helpmate of man, religiously, politically, morally, socially; but, oh! said he, in a sorrowful tone, it will be a sad day for the race when woman takes command, and man is pushed aside. (Convulsive laughter, and cries of "Give us your experience.")
Mrs. Farnham was glad the subject of woman's superiority had been broached, and only regretted that as a scientific fact it could not be more seriously discussed.
A gentleman deprecated the fact that Mr. Warren had not been more fully heard.
The President said it was the audience and not the platform that laughed. Loud calls were made for
Douglass, to which he responded, claiming woman's right to freedom and equality on the same grounds he based his own.
William Lloyd Garrison maintained woman's right to sit in Congress and the legislatures—that there should be the same number of women as men in all the national councils. He said respect for his sainted mother, love for his noble wife, and for the only daughter of his house and heart (my own Fanny), compel me to defend the rights of all women. Those who have inaugurated this movement are worthy to be ranked with the army of martyrs and confessors in the days of old. Blessings on them! They should triumph, and every opposition be removed, that peace and love, justice and liberty, might prevail throughout the world.
A Mr. Tyler remarked that a fear had been expressed that in coming to the polls, woman would be compelled to meet men who drink and smoke. Do women encounter no such evils in their homes? Whisky and tobacco are much greater obstacles at the marriage altar than at the polls—in the relation of wife than in that of citizen.
George William Curtis, then in the height of his reputation (as Howadji), spoke at length in favor of suffrage for woman, but amid constant interruptions. With a short speech from Mrs. Rose, the Convention adjourned amid great confusion.
NINTH NATIONAL CONVENTION.
In accordance with a call issued by the Central Committee, the Ninth National Woman's Rights Convention was held in the City of New York on Thursday, May 12, 1859.
The sessions commenced with a business meeting, on the afternoon of that day, in Mozart Hall. The meeting was called to order by Susan B. Anthony, of Rochester, New York, who made a few introductory remarks, after which, the question of the expediency of memorializing the Legislatures of the different States, on the subject of granting equal rights to Woman, was discussed at some length. At the close of the debate, a resolution was adopted, that it was expedient so to memorialize the several Legislatures, and a committee157 was appointed for that purpose, and a series of resolutions158 offered by Caroline H. Dall.
These resolutions were discussed by Mrs. Dall, Mrs. Hallock, Mrs. Elizabeth Neal Gay, Lucretia Mott, A. M. Powell, Charles C. Burleigh, and others.
EVENING SESSION.
At an early hour, Mozart Hall was crowded to overflowing, every seat being occupied, and crowds standing in the aisle, and the rear of the hall.
Lucretia Mott had been chosen to preside, but was not able, on account of the crowd, to reach the platform at the hour appointed. The Convention was therefore called to order by Susan B. Anthony.
Mrs. Caroline H. Dall, of Boston, was the first speaker. She desired to commemorate the century which had just closed since the death of Mary Woolstonecraft, and to show that what she did in the old world, Margaret Fuller had done in the new; but the noise and restlessness among the audience were so great (much of which, we charitably hope, was attributable rather to the discomfort of their position than to any want of respect for the speaker, or for the cause which the Convention represented), that she yielded to the wish of the presiding officer, and sat down without speaking of Margaret Fuller.
Short speeches were made by Lucretia Mott, Antoinette Brown Blackwell, and Ernestine L. Rose; but as it proved to be another turbulent meeting, Wendell Phillips, who understood from long experience how to play with and lash a mob, and thrust what he wished to say into their long ears, all with one consent yielded the platform to him, and for nearly two hours he held that mocking crowd in the hollow of his hand. In closing he said:
I will not attempt to detain you longer. ["Go on"—"Go on."] I have neither the disposition nor the strength to trespass any longer upon your attention. The subject is so large that it might well fill days, instead of hours. It covers the whole surface of American society. It touches religion, purity, political economy, wages, the safety of cities, the growth of ideas, the very success of our experiment. I gave to-night a character to the city of Washington which some men hissed. You know it is true. If this experiment of self-government is to succeed, it is to succeed by some saving element introduced into the politics of the present day. You know this: Your Websters, your Clays, your Calhouns, your Douglases, however intellectually able they may have been, have never dared or cared to touch that moral element of our national life. Either the shallow and heartless trade of politics had eaten out their own moral being, or they feared to enter the unknown land of lofty right and wrong.
Neither of these great names has linked its fame with one great moral question of the day. They deal with money questions, with tariffs, with parties, with State law, and if by chance they touch the slave question, it is only like Jewish hucksters trading in the relics of Saints. The reformers—the fanatics, as we are called—are the only ones who have launched social and moral questions. I risk nothing when I say, that the anti-slavery discussion of the last twenty years has been the salt of this nation; it has actually kept it alive and wholesome. Without it, our politics would have sunk beyond even contempt. So with this question. It stirs the deepest sympathy; it appeals to the highest moral sense; it enwraps within itself the greatest moral issues. Judge it, then, candidly, carefully, as Americans, and let us show ourselves worthy of the high place to which God has called us in human affairs. (Applause).
MEMORIAL.
To the Honorable the Legislature of the State of ——
The National Woman's Rights Convention, held in New York City, May 12, 1859, appointed your memorialists a Committee to call your attention to the anomalous position of one-half the people of this Republic.
All republican constitutions set forth the great truth that every human being is endowed with certain inalienable rights—such as life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness—and as a consequence, a right to the use of all those means necessary to secure these grand results.
1st.—A citizen can not be said to have a right to life, who may be deprived of it for the violation of laws to which she has never consented—who is denied the right of trial by a jury of her peers—who has no voice in the election of judges who are to decide her fate.
2d.—A citizen can not be said to have a right to liberty, when the custody of her person belongs to another; when she has no civil or political rights—no right even to the wages she earns; when she can make no contracts—neither buy nor sell, sue or be sued—and yet can be taxed without representation.
3d.—A citizen can not be said to have a right to happiness, when denied the right to person, property, children, and home; when the code of laws under which she is compelled to live is far more unjust and tyrannical than that which our fathers repudiated at the mouth of the cannon nearly one century ago.
Now, we would ask on what principle of republicanism, justice, or common humanity, a minority of the people of this Republic have monopolized to themselves all the rights of the whole? Where, under our Declaration of Independence, does the white Saxon man get his power to deprive all women and negroes of their inalienable rights?
The mothers of the Revolution bravely shared all dangers, persecutions, and death; and their daughters now claim an equal share in all the glories and triumphs of your success. Shall they stand before a body of American legislators and ask in vain for their right of suffrage—their right of property—their right to the wages they earn—their right to their children and their homes—their sacred right to personal liberty—to a trial by a jury of their peers?
In view of these high considerations, we demand, then, that