Anne Dickinson Speeches & Writings File Speech file Women's RightsJune 30" Skirts - 2 - Nightgowns [2]3 - Chemises 3 Drawers [3]4 Sack 1 Underwaist 2 Stockings 2 Silk Shirt 1 Kerchief 3 Towel 1 2 pn Cuffs Miss "Dickson" Women's Rights1 Idiots & Women! not a combination complimentary to your [own] Sex. I hear [you] men say as I utter it. I respond by two lines from Sophocles Tis you that say it, not I. You do the deeds And your ungodly deeds find me the words. I but rank them as the law ranks them & the law is — what public opinion makes it. — All people in this country, of the age of 21 years shall be citizens able to vote & hold office save only paupers, idiots, criminals & women, - thus says the law. for the day of absolute enfranchisement for the blacks draws so nigh that they may be said to stand on the favored side - in the ranks of republican aristocracy. [Why I ask is this combination] Paupers, criminals, idiots & women, - these are held unworthy the highest prerogative of citizenship in the Republic. — Yet it is only on the last of even this miserable & degraded class that the law is strictly enforced. —_ Paupers. _ What are the masses of the disloyal people in the South to day – paupers fed [by the hand] at the hand of governmental charity, or by the hand of private benevolence. _ rude, [coarse,] [vulgar,] illiterate, brutal, ignorant, treasonable. _ paupers! _ yet they vote. Criminals! _ What are the men in the South who with intelligence, & malice aforethought, fomented discord, swore falsely, broak oaths, - destroyed the land in blood, strove to assassinate the republic & did assassinate its defenders, [criminals at the bar of their country, - at the bar of History, at the bar of God. — Yet they vote.] — [Idiots!] _ [What are the men in] the north _ who with every sentiment of honor, of justice, of loyalty, of common sense to draw them to the support of their country, _ in its hour of bitterest trial, forsook it, _ struck hands with its enemies, _ aided its assailants, opened a fire in the rear of its columns, _ were responsible for [*2*] the horrors of the N.Y. riot, _ what are these men. _ summed up meannesses capable of enormities, _ but criminals _ criminals at the bar of their country at the bar of history, at the bar of God. _ _ Yet they vote. Idiots! What are the men in the north _ pre-eminently those calling themselves republicans _ who support A J. _ Yet they vote. The law should read _ some criminals idiots & paupers _ & all women are excluded from the Election franchise. I protest against this infamous association _ I protest against the law which places in the same catalogue the masses of thoughtful intelligent, educated women, with the gibbering inmate of [the] hospitals & asylums. _ I protest against the law which ranks the these millions of toiling, industrious, work performing, money-producing women, with the idle worthless pauper in the poor-house. _ I protest against the law which calls the broken hearted mothers, the mourning sisters, the desolate wives of the loyal North. in the same muster roll with the blood-stained _ treason blackened _ disfranchised rebels of the South. _ It is useless to tell her that no such thought is in the minds of men who make & administer law & of those who sustain it _ useless to tell her that one class is included because it is too vile, & the other because it is too pure to interfere in these matters. _ too pure to interfere with that of which the great Hooker magnificently wrote _ "of law no less can be said than that her seat is the bosom of God; her voice the harmony of the Spheres All things in Heaven & Earth do her reverence" _ one might well think that the purer, the nobler, the sweeter the soul, the better fitted is it to touch aught so sacred & divine. [as this should be, _ & if it is not, it is because this goodness sweetness, nobility, purity are denied the right to — reason would so indicate,] Common sense would so indicate, - reason would so decide, _ & when you say to me that women are shut out from the election franchise, from [*3*] active participation in this matter of law. to save them from vileness & contamination, [?] I answer, - nonsense! When Englishmen hundreds of years ago, decided that a wife might be sold in the market place _ with a halter around her neck, _ decided that she could hold no property in her own right, - decided that she was the slave of her husband. to be worked for his profit, _ he taking the earnings of her head or hand, _ decided her to be an irrational irresponsible being, who could not be punished for committing any crime in the presence of her husband, decided that she could bring children into the world, over whom she could have rights, _ who could be apprenticed to infamy _ she helpless to interfere, - who could be taken from her if she driven by hideous injustice left her home. - or used to [keep] force her to submit to oppression & outrage, from one who should protect & cherish her. _ decided that she could be beaten as a dog by her liege lord providing it was done with a stick no bigger than his thumb. _ When such laws as these were made, were they the offspring of an exalted sense of womans [goodness], superiority goodness & purity? _ You smile at the suggestion, _ yet this English common law is the basis of all our legislation for women, _ is enforced in some of the States, _ has been partially covered in others by special enactments _ - but is everywhere visible in the spirit which classes us with paupers, idiots, & criminals. Because woman is too good & pure. _ did the masses of the men who ages ago made the law believe so. _ do the masses of men who support it to day? _ the beardless fast young fellows who cigar in mouth, & glass in hand - dishonor the mother who bore them by their [allusions] talk about womanhood. _ _ do they believe so. _ the myriads of [has] men who never consult their wives & who sneer at their advice when it is given, _ [the] men who say [precious few men can tell me how to do business, let alone] [*4*] [a woman, _ attend to your business my dear, _ what do you women know about politics,] - men who think that [a] women were constituted for their sole use, benefit & enjoyment. _ do these men believe so. the men who pay women five cents apiece for making shirts, & annually send thousands to starvation or shame _ do they believe so. _ the ruffianly husbands who under sanction of the law beat their wives, _ squander their hard earnings, - outrage them in body, mind, & spirit every day. _ do they believe so _ the drunkards who rush home to abuse, assault murder, [shuddering, cowering] patient, helpless wive at home _ do they believe so. _ [do] the destroyers who up & down our streets, at night, or in the broad light of day, prowl [up & down] seeking whom they may devour _ do they believe so? _ these men are all clamorous in support of the law as it is, _ are all eger to keep women in their proper sphere, _ are all anxious to save them from contamination! Contamination forsooth, _ as if there could be any worse contamination in life than that to be gained by the daily touch & association of such as they. [These are among the defenders of the law, with] ah see you [sir], who, are a gentleman, a scholar, _ a man just and humane withal, have strange supports! on your side are [the] drunkards, gamblers, ruffians, - the great mass who never think save as they are driven by necessity, - who never move save as they are forced onward by the irresistable tide of events. _ on the other side _ an army small yet with what material in the ranks, _ with what officers in its command. _ Stuart, Mill, the clearest heads, _ the soundest thinkers, the greatest brains, the warmest hearts, _ the manliest men, & most womenly women. _ they [men] who day & night, with unwearied effort & unflagging courage struggle for the advancement, the elevation, the happiness of their kind. [*5*] [With what weapons do these [you] fight] This little army declares that to place woman in this list is to degrade & and dishonor her, _ that neither her own benefit, nor the [help] good of humanity is [subsided] by exempting [?] from legal responsibilities, & denying her legal rights, _ & these declarations are sustained by appeals to the judgment, the candor, the thoughtfulness, the sense of justice in the minds of men & women, _ with what weapons are they met. _ ridicule, sneers, _ talks about antiquity, custom, _ established usages, _ all the old arguments are no arguments that have him used by the holders of usurped authority whensoever they have been called upon to show reason why they should retain it. To-night I put the question to you why in this country which professes to secure [the] life liberty & the pursuit of happiness to all, _ liberty in its highest sense should be denied to half. _ Why [in] a government which professes to gain its just powers from the consent of the governed, should never [ask] [nor] receive [the] nor even ask the consent of one half those whose destinies it controls. _ Why a Con. which declares itself to be made & sustained by "we the people" should entirely ignore even the existence of one half the people. _ Why a nation founded on the principle that taxation & representation are inseperable should tax thousands & tens of thousands of its members, yet deny to them all right of selecting or electing for themselves a representative. _ Why a Democracy which declares that "all are created equal" should have the most absolute aristocracy upon the face of the earth, _ an aristocracy in which all men are patricians & all women [are] plebeians. _ [Why a] In brief why in this Republic which professes to set an example of [*6*] liberality, of equality, of justice to all the nations of the world, one half the species should have controlled their lives, liberties, persons, properties, by an irresponsible & absolute power. I am answered, - nay every soul that puts such practical [& every] & reasonable [way just] questions as these, is answered first by [gibes,] hootings, revilings, gibes or [a] well bred sneers, _ proof of a weak cause for men do not use such ugly & [dishonorable] contemptible weapons, when there are better ones within their reach. _ Weapons too _ which have been used against every [noble] reform, at its outset, _ against [every] all reformers until the cause for which they fought stood crowned & triumphant. _ reproach has been levelled against them every one _ each in his turn by the insects of the hour _ who raised their little hum & died & were forgotten, _ the supporters of this cause stand so far at lastwith the glorious company of the apostles, the goodly fellowship of the prophets, the noble army of martyrs, _ no good work or workers ever yet escaped ridicule & opposition aye & at the hands of those for whose benefit & help they toiled. _ Custom _ Habit, _ Antiquity, the existing law, _ are against any change you tell me. _ true & they have been against every change ever wrought for the progress & elevation of the race. _ Has not the law notoriously always been in the wrong. _ has not every step in the worlds onward progress been made from scaffold to scaffold & from stake to stake. _ has not century after century waded through seas of blood to come up with garments washed of manifold stains & slowly approaching whiteness. _ Have not custom, habit, the exiting law _ made their myriads of martyrs, crimsoned innumerable battle-fields, ere they were driven from their strongholds & struck their banners, _ [have they] [*7*] [even capitulated] _ the iniquities of custom, habit, _ the wisdom of the legislator seems to lie in palliating them one by one, generation by generation, law by law, _ to correct without intermission, to be always ameliorating, is the justice of imperfect beings like us. Antiquity is on your side, _ granted, - is it supposable that the blind, or one-sided men [of] who lived ages ago, were any wiser, better, more enlightened than the same species of men who exist to-day. _ At the great London exhibition their was a bit of coal in which the Savans said a toad had existed 1000 years, & yet he was not a bit better informed than toads seven or eight hundred years younger, _ a bad law is not improved by age, any more than an egg is. You tell me that the great majority of people in the world are on your side, _ as if that were a sufficient answer. _ A feeling is not proud to be right & exempted from the necessity of justifying belief, because the writer or speaker is not only conscience of it himself but knows that it is in other people, _ because instead of saying "I" he says "You & I." _ "The weightiest argument then for a doctrine is the number which adopts it." _ I cry nay. _ Many take for granted what others have said before them. _ & they are vexed if these things are contradicted _ many live by what others before them have done, & they are angry if these things are overthrown. _ if the fact that a sentiment is a prevailing one be sufficient to establish its truth, _ that a majority on any side makes that the right side, then has every discovery in science, _ in art, _ in government _ in religion been a lie a mad notion, a gross delusion, an absurdity was the verdict of the acad. of sciences when consulted by Napoleon upon steam-ships, _ still I will venture to say that matrical enterprises _ witness Luther's _ are sometimes no bad things; _ & that the animals most inclined to pursue the follow my leader Stephen are _ _ geese. _ [*8*] It has been my life long conviction you tell me that the proper sphere of woman forbad her having aught to do with the vexed question of politics, - life long conviction, _ very good, _ have you never had a dispute & found out that you were wrong? So much the worse for you. _ conviction indeed! _ a conviction means, careful thought, - a thorough comprehension of an idea a principal, - a final & full acceptance of it because the reasons therefore are irresistable, _ have you ever given this question any such attention, is not your belief in your own theory rather the belief which Talleyrand expressed in the Bible, _ "[I believe in it] first because I am Bishop of Autun, & secondly because I know nothing about it at all." _ Still [you do] I repeat the question why a Gov which gains its just powers from the consent of the governed _ neither asks nor receives such consent from one half its subjects. _ Because [she] these sub. have delegated that consent to others you say. _ She has submitted herself to the authority of somebody else who is to act as her proxy with the Gov. - When I ask was any such consent delegated, - when any such proxy appointed? - Who ever asked the women of the past whether they would yield their rights to the keeping of another, - You & I know full well they never had any to yield, - & if they had & did how could their action, govern the men & women of to-day. - laws are daily passed. - Constitutions are formed, amended, abolished, - as intimately affecting my rights. - personal, - civil, & of property as those of any man who listens to me. _ Yet I have no voice in them whatever, no control over those who make them, for certain am I that I have not been consulted & that I never have [been] appointed a delegate to [speak] act in my stead, - [& equally sure am I that.] _ the laws are more generous to women, - they are better & more kindly governed by men than they would be by themselves, _ they are spared anxiety responsibility [*9*] & care. _ granted for the instant, _ agreed that men govern women better or as well as they [could] govern themselves, _[that anxiety & responsibility are saved them. _ there is a loss on either side] _ Still woman has an injustice done her, - for it gives to men the advantage both of responsibility & magnanimity, & withholds [them] from women the advantage of either. _ Still is seems to me a preposterously foolish claim for any one to set up in this age in defence of an exercise of power over others, for their own good. - _ when these others are neither idiots paupers or criminals. _ It is the argument of Turkey for its oppression of Greece, _ of England for its despotism in Ireland. _ of the princes & nobles of Europe for their absolute control of the [destinies] lives & liberties of the masses. - Yet all history goes to demonstrate that one human being never is safe in the hands ofanother , _ & that class legislation has always been unjust & unequal. _ _ I marvel at that readiness with which men exercise this power, & the certain satisfaction they possess that their action could not be improved. _ when Alexander was told that his character was as good as a Constitution to his people. - then said he I am but a lucy accident, - & lucky accidents do not abound, either among the crowned heads of world with millions under their authority, - or [in] among the [homes] men of America with [one subject] women under their absolute control. _ Granted even that these men mean to be just & fair, _ the class legislators always legislate for their own class _ not so much often through selfishness, as simply because they know what their own class need & want, or desire infinitely better than they can those of another. _ I do not mean to denounce all men as awful tyrants. The history of our race is made up of wrongs, many of which were committed without a suspicion of their [*10*] true character & many from an urgent sense of duty _ can we wonder then, that even upright & righteous men should be slow to be convinced of the evil & injustice of an [law] [habit] abuse sanctioned by prescription, & which has so interwoven itself with all the habits, employment & economy of life that he can hardly conceive of the existence of society without this all pervading element. _ [it is] Granted &c. _ & - him the injustice stands patent. _ either women are the same as men in every respect, with the same heads, wishes, desires necessities, - or they are not. _ If they are the same they should have the same privileges, rights & responsibilities, _ _ should legislate for themselves as men do. _ if they are not now shall those who are wholly unlike them understand what it is they desire, especially when they do not explain, & grant them what they need _ when they frequently do not ask? _ Women governed better, or as well as they would govern themselves, _ the assertion is refuted by that argument which it will never be possible to answer in a manner satisfactory to the great body of mankind, _ the argument of facts. - [The law in] Let me give you half-a-dozen items. _ Virginia _ & the trunk & clothes. _ "It has been decided by a Wisconsin court that a man has a right to chastise his wife _ good." _ Illinois, & insane asylum. _ _ Conn. & the the woman in jail. _ Ohio & the farm. _ the drunkards wins, _ the collected wages. _ the necessity of suing for divorce in anothers name. _ the taking of children &c. _ [Why if a womans rights are so well taken care of are our statute books covered with laws to protect women against her.] the woman who murders her child to hide her shame, dragged to answer for it, the man free. _ _ You tell me that these are but dead letters upon the statute books, that men would scorn to exercise the authority which the law delegates to them. _ then I say, the laws which take it for granted that they do are an insult & should be repealed _ whilts on the other hand bad laws encourage bad [*11*] men & make them worse. [All] Suppose that there are no men so [bad] infamous as to [exercise] enforce these laws. _ Then the law which is an outrage on humanity & decency alike ought to be annulled that there should be no reminder of the past, of the brutality of the one & the serfdom of the other. _ & that even the influence of the law should be imped out. _ oh, never, never, do you suppose that I, a woman, feel no [blow upon] smart in my spirit, no sting in my heart, when I read with scarlet cheek & flaming eye such laws as these. _ badges at least of womans past degradation, because no blows fall upon my shoulders, & no prison, or asylum walls [confine] shut me in. _ beyond this, I protest against that presumption which takes for granted justice & kindness, because the laws of justice & kindness can be transgressed with impunity, _ which makes little or no provision against wrong because of the supposed disposition of those armed with power to do right, _ It is an established fact in Gov & history that there can be no theoretical wrong without some practical evil Are these laws dead letters on the statute books _ let the [laws] record of every days police, court tell, _ I wonder how many women annually in dark & poverty-stricken dens are kicked, _ tortured, _ beaten to death, _ how many in [beautiful] comfortable houses & seemingly beautiful homes, die every day they live & over-anguished [go out] gain eternity at last, - it [is] was well said of a certain German book that is did not permit itself to be read, _ there are some [subjects] secrets which do not permit themselves to be told. _ What [mothers] lives have endured rather than suffer a separation from their children. _ what widows have borne by the unjust wills made in a fitful, _ peevish, or wandering home of a dying man. _ what [a] histories the employers of wives who have drunken or dissolute husbands, could tell of the failing strength, & exhausting toil that never reaped its fair reward. _ its wages going to the dram-shop, or the gambling table, lying under her eye without ever reaching her hand. _ fair laws! rare laws! most equitable laws, _ [*12*] laws which our proxy's make to govern us, _ which are as just, as fair as generous as he would make to govern ourselves. _ They are an [sufficient] ample refutation of the assertion, that women are [sufficiently] represented by their influence on men, an assertion which is only not a truism [only] because it is as Coleridge would say a falsism [that a womans influence may be great is, _ that she may gain much for herself is true, but that this influence] an assertion constantly put forth in answer to the demand that as taxation & representation are inseparable, _ women should either be left untaxed, or being taxed should be represented, _ every woman, taxed or untaxed is to be represented by her husband whom she is to influence. _ very good. _ [suf] then she is to be reduced to the alternative of a husband _ or nothing, _ & as Theo Parker well said, that is very often a choice between two nothings, _ suppose she has no husband. _ In thestreet back of my home. 60 houses. _ A man in each. _ each of these men have a vote while I who pay more tax than all of them combined can have no voice or vote. _ Mutually represented, _ represented by their influence on men. _ There is no such representation, _ [do not men influence women more strongly than women do men do they not claim to be, & are they not from the necessity of their present & past liberation stronger.] Influence! _ is not a man's influence on woman, in the great majority of cases stronger than a womans on man. _ Let us hear no more of woman's influence as if it were an equivalent for all the rights which man possesses, for the possessions of those rights, far from annihilating man's influence gives it tenfold weight. _ Common sense & justice would say _ let every one have equality of right or power, & let our own character give us all the influence it can. _ realizing what this influence is, however, according it at its full value, & it is great. _ I would educate it, - ennoble it, make it responsible, _ to-day, a woman says, I am shut out from Gov. I have no part or lot [with] in it, _ whether its [be] course be honorable or disgraceful, - [whether this man's, - my husband's or loves] whether this measure [*13*] be carried or defeated to [?] what matter, - to carry it would be to do service to the State, but it would ruin the prospects of my husband or lover, therefore I will do all I can to influence him against it, - to defeat it would be to belittle or disgrace the State, - but to aggrandize the fortunes of [one dear], & the effort is made, how often successfully to carry him over to the evil side. _ I would [take this] make these women care for the state by a stake in it, I would make them suffer for the honor _ being a part of it, _ I would make them responsible for their good or [evil] bad action in its concerns, _ make them [play] do their [part] do when the world can look on as a[n] [audience] witness & judge. _ [It is just a few women. Granted however that these women are sufficiently represented _ what shall be said of others. _ Are the thousands of women toiling in garrets & cellars, by daylight & candles light, in weariness, in pain, in suffering, in agony & death, _ working] [fourteen hours a day, _ earning a shilling, _ who represents these women _ the men who indirectly speculate in their flesh & blood. _ the men who sell their sighs & hars, their anguished groans, their aching heads, & palsied hands, & broken hearts, _ are these their representatives, _ The women who sweep up & down the sidewalks of the great cities, night after night things of shame, _ day by day down a hideous abyss, _ clinging fast perchance here & there, _ struggling a little upward, then falling back. _ looking to their childhood, _ their purity, _ looking at the door of starvation, _ of temptation, of betrayed love, _ of consummate deceit & infamous desertion, _ who represents these. _ the men who won & betrayed them, _ the men who enticed, ruining & deserted them, _ the men who led them to what they thought to be heavens gate, & plunged them into hell. _ are these their representatives. _] [The forty thousand drunkards] [*14*] [If she] [You tell me that she will not have time to devote to the necessary thought & study of] One cries out in answer to this. _ She has not time &c. _ Where is the man who does not say that his work is more onerous, difficult &c. than a womans. _ [who does] Yet he has always time. [Another cries, her proper sphere is home.] Certain it is if she had not time to inform himself how to vote. She has not time to be sufficiently posted to influence the vote of another. _ A second exclaims, _ her proper sphere is home, there is her work. _ let her not wander beyond it. _ well, _ the proper sphere of most men is in the store, the shop, the work room, the field, the study, _ therefore they should delegate all their rights to the few who can devote their whole time to [it] politics as a business, _ _ & how their rights would be taken care of, & their business transacted if these same professional politicianshad absolute control I need not say. _ It is only because those whose business of life is not politics, interfere with those whose it is, that this country has even been saved, & its the honor & name preserved among the nations of the earth. _ A woman a professional politician _ God forbid. & Heaven send that the present race of them among men may speedily disappear, & something better & more respectable may take its place. _ If third declares that women do not know anything about politics & therefore should not be entrusted with [them] any part of their keeping, _ doubtless. _ the fish in the mammoth cave have no eyes. _ what is the [use] of wasting material of eye on sight, _ they have no need of or work for them. _ the argument is that of Junius that "no person is entitled to a political right till he has learned how to use it; no man is qualified for a trust till he knows how to fulfill it." The doctrine would be a hard rule to apply, even to that brotherhood of great men to whom all the States look back with equal pride. The first true republic that the world ever saw was inaugurated by Statesmen unpracticed in the arts of government. [*15*] In the eye of European courts it was but a band of unskilled colonists, utterly [unskilled] unlearned in all the complex machinery of national organization or management, who met & formed themselves into a nation, taking upon themselves duties of citizenship which neither they nor any other men upon the face of the earth had ever assumed. Yet the world soon discovered from our example that the citizen learns his duties in fulfilling them, _ or in homlier phrase _ that the art of swimming is best learned in the water. _ [Why should women care for politics when they are constantly forbidden to take any part in them, _ how are they to learn to talk & act about & in them save by] Give women political rights & they will know vastly more about them. _ Let women make laws, & they will talk more [sensibly] sense in regard to them. Permit women to interfere with authority in affairs of Gov. & they will interfere with both conscience discretion. Doubled cries a forth, _ denied utterly indeed, _ a woman is incapable of considering such difficult _ abstruse & profound questions as those of law & gov. _ She doesn't know enough. _ educate her then, it is a rare compliment to our great school system, that the cultivated women of Am are not as capable of deciding questions of law as the ignorant foreigner just landed on our shore. _ the German unable to [speak] read or write our language, _ the Irishman unable to read or write any. _ education will not suffice says this man, it is an inherent & radical defect, _ a woman's natural capacity is not sufficent, _ in brief as a Character in a popular English novel phrases it, "Women at the best are but silly creatures," _ granted, _ but why, _ god almighty made some of them so to match some of the men. [*16*] I always know just what estimate to put upon a man by the estimate which he places upon a woman, _ an insignificant little fellow with a string two inches long throws his plummet into the nature of the woman [beside him] whom he meets, & think because his line is all out that he has touched bottom while in reality it has scarcely fallen through the topmost waves, _ it is these small creatures, [these feeble immasculine men,] _ who fight most strenuously against the influence & power of women it is no wonder that such as they [such men as these look down upon women] consider women fools comparing themselves with the masses of men in the world & then going to their own home to find some woman who at least professes to look up to them. It is only the selfish & vain that would limit anything which refuses or which ennobles existence it is only those who are in themselves poor & mean of spirit who desire monopoly of indulgence, or exclusiveness of privilege; Moses desired that all the Lord's people were prophets & that desire contains the essence of a great soul in every generation. _ _ [A large brained, large hearted man says with Thackeray recognizes the.] [But then they are so different _ so utterly unlike men, _ granted _ that being the case how can men legislate for them. _ different from men _ granted, _ there are innumerable diversities among men themselves, ordained to bind them together, not to subdue one to the other, ordained to give means & occasions of mutual aid. _ diversities which are as not of oppressing injustice nothing in comparison with the attributes in which they agree.] [All this is begging the whole question, _ If women are different from men then men cannot legislate for them, _ if they are like men they should legislate for themselves. _] If inferiority of physical strength be a barrier then every man who is weaker than any woman should be immediately disfranchised & forever incapacitated from [exercising] using the ballot till he is stronger than the strongest woman in the world. If inferiority of intellect is to deprive her of this right _ then you declare [*17*] human faculties to be the basis of all rights, & each man has got to show reason why he should hold or exercise any, for no one [being] brain can demonstrate its right to rule another by superiority of power, no one can make good a right [to] over others, which others may not establish over himself. If as you say it would be but so many votes added without any material difference in the result, _ that every wife would vote as her husband, daughter as her father &c. _ _ I say there is no reason to suppose that there would be any more unanimity in one household in regard to political than there is in regard to religious belief. _ & even consenting to the case _ what do you demonstrate, _ follow your [simply that if] idea out to its logical consequences _ that to-day if there be in a room fifty democrats & fifty republicans, forty-nine on either side should [*the following was written between the lines, and continues on to the next page*] Inferiority of intellect _ [then] to deprive her of rights, _ then it should deprive her responsibilities & punishments, _ if a woman does not know enough to [vote upon] make a law, she does not know enough to be punished for breaking it. _ there are jails & gallows for women. there should be instruction & the ballot for women, _ If you refuse a woman the ballot, you should refuse her punishment, _ by what right you say to a woman when a law is to be made _ stand back. you have not the intellect to comprehend this, _ Yet [hang this same] send this same same woman to states prison _ or the gallows when this very law is broken. [if a woman is to be punished for a broken law] when you hang a man you hang one who has helped to make the law, who assents to it, & whom you assert by the power you place in [their] his hands has the intelligence to comprehend what are his [responsibilities] duties, his rights, & his but when you hang a woman forbreaking a law which she has not made, to which her assent has never been asked, & which you declare her incapable of understanding - when you punish her you commit an injustice & when you hang her you commit murder by every law of God & man. resign the right on either side, as there would be no material difference whether fifty voted against fifty or one against one. This right of individual thought, expression, action, [thre] was at the basis of the Reformation - is the active spirit of Progress in the nineteenth century. - [is the spring of action], is a right [toiled] which has been struggled for, agonized, died for, & which is held above all price by every earnest soul to-day. - nay which the poorest & vilest, - the most degraded & worthless will not give away & are slow to sell. After all you exclaim, granting your whole position, - agreed that your propositions are just, - that [gov] the [sole real] only just foundation for this gov is the consent of the governed & that no human being should be taxed without actual representation - what then, these women do not [wish] demand it. - Mr. Greely said in here - the reports to the York Con. that [the] it recommended the granting of the ballot to negroes because they asked for it & [*18*] the witholding thereof from women because they did not wish it. - How are you [man] to know whether women wish it or not. - they say they do not - well! What is proven by that. - the slaves said they did not wish freedom, - did [they] any intelligent man or woman believe them. - these women say that they do not wish enfranchisement, - do not wish any more rights, - have all they desire already, - & you believe them! - [I have heard a woman say just that in the presence of her husband & friends, who with shaking hand, & trembling form & broken voice [has] a little while after has protested against the injustice the law does to her.] - You think sir that you know a woman, & then believe what she says, - know her indeed! - Thackeray once well wrote - when I say that I know women, I mean I know that I dont know them. - Some womensay so because it will please their husbands, some from an [area] of the little world falsely called Great & the law of its lawless dictators, _ many because they think nothing at all about the matter, _ many because they are so hedged & sheltered about by strong arms & loving hearts that no winds that blow nor storms that beat trouble or assail them. _ Well! no one will force these women to vote,_ no one intends driving them to the polls under compulsion, _ no one will thrust a ballot in their hands, & march them up by force of arms to drop it. _ if they don't want to exercise the right the men fact of its being [given to them] granted men will compel them to use. _ never yet has it been found necessary to pass a law to [restrain] force people [from] to do that which they pre-eminently desired to do. _ or to restrain them from doing that which they loathed. _ but why these women who do not want to vote should be a means of depriving those who do is beyond my comprehension. _ suppose that they are the immense majority, & that the [*19*] others are the insignificant minority _ is it I ask in accordance with principle or with numbers that you judge of the justice of a cause? _ What does this prove? that there are human beings who have lost the sentiment of dignity & independence but not that right is not right. _ my neighbor across the way does not wish to vote, _ I do. _ now the power in my hands leaves me as far to stay from the polls as she is to-day. _ but the [denial of it to her] command to her to [stay] remain at home gives me no [freedom] liberty to go ahead. _ I hear women sitting in their beautiful homes &c say I have all the rights I want already, _ I want no change, no alteration, no improvement, _ I say I look at such women when they have intelligence & culture on their side, with an amazement that borders on horror. _ [passing by the falsity that] In the first place if the declaration that they have all the rights they need or wish already is false, _ they have no more rights at the hands of the law than the poorest, abused outraged woman who enters a [police] court of [law] justice, to [plead in vain against the] to have injustice [deny] her. _ the law is alike for all, _ the rights are denied to all in equal measure, _ the sole difference is that one has the privelege of a husband, a father, a brother, who lets not the iniquities of the law fall upon these well beloved heart or head. _ be slow then my friend to make a taunt of that which is [yours] lent [by grace] but not owned, _ be slow to speed out your good thinks before those who are hungry & starving when no crumb [falls] can fall from your table to feed or comfort them _ it makes ragged Lazarus doubly hungry to see [Dems] feeding in cloth of gold. _ Suppose you are better taken care of than you could take care of yourself _ suppose that [the] an unjust law is so interpreted for you as to be more generous[ly] than a just one would be passed by yourself. _ There are other women in the world _ think madam of them. _ The widows who see the [*20*] homes they have helped to earn, the lands they have helped to buy, _ the very tools with which they have [?] their household work _ swept away from them by an unjust decision of a dying husband, & wicked law, _ are these duly represented, & have they all the rights they want already. _ the toiling wives who struggling hard to [see make] save a home, to educate their children properly & clothe them deacently _ see their wages week after week, year after year [swallowed up] paid to their husbands, or taken afterwards by them to be [swallowed up] squandered in folly & vice. _ Yet living on, striving on, enduring all things rather than part from their children whom the law would give to the [husband] degrading control of the husband. _ are these duly represented & have they all the rights they want already. The thousands of women toiling in garretts & cellars, by daylight & candle light, in weariness, in pain, in suffering, in agony, & death. _ working twelve & fourteen hours a day _ earning a shilling, _ are these duly represented _ who represents them. _ the men who sell their sighs & tears, their anguished groans, their aching heads, & palsied hands, & broken hearts _ are these their representatives, & have they all the rights they wish already. The women who sweep up & down the sidewalks of your great cities night after night, things of shame, _ [thrust] then through the door of starvation of suffering, of betrayed love, of [?] temptation, of foul deceit. _ who represents these. _ the men who opened the doors & flung them in _ the men who ground their faces, being poor, the men who won & deserted them, _ the men who led them to what they thought the gate of heaven only to plunge them into the depths of hell. _ are these their representatives. _ have these women all the rights they want already. _ The woman who to hide her [*21*] shame, [has put her] & save a life time of disgrace to her child, has [put] sent its little innocent soul into the eternities, this woman arraigned at the bar of a law made by men, for men, the law which holds a mother responsible for maternity, but not a father for paternity _ seeing it may be in the Judge who tries & sentences her, _ among the jury that convicts her, _ in the midst of the throng which watches her at the bar or on the gallows, the very man who wrought all this shame & anguish, _ far, untouched, perchance respected & honored has this woman all the rights she wants already? _ oh bitter mockery. _ The mothers who see their sons going out from pleasant country homes. from sheltered nooks & places into the great babylons, _ where the descent to hell is everywhere broad & easy of descent, _ where sin opens wide its doors, & crime seizes the hand of each unwary traveller, _ these mothers, helpless to save their boys, _ helpless to close any of these doors, helpless to stay any of this stream of allurement & death, _ have these women all the rights they want already. The mothers whose boys have fallen, _ who for a first offense are sent with hardened criminals & malefactors to a prison, which is not a school for reform, _ which the influence & power of such women would make it, _ but of [merciless] harshest punishment, [& degradation] justice untempered by mercy which the harder fiber of man makes it, _ these mothers seeing their boys destroyed forever, _ lost to God & good forever by the prison system which men have made & sustain, have these women all the rights they wish already. _ The Forty thousand drunkard wives in the one state of New-York alone, _ living in shanties & houls, _ cowering & [shuddering] shivering _ trembling at every step, _ their peace gone, their happiness gone, _ all that makes life worth the living destroyed, _ their children in rags & hungry & cold, _ [*22*] themselves beaten bruised mangled, [crying out in intolerable agony to God.] _ helpless to close the shops which men everywhere allow opened, helpless to stay the horrible tide of turn which men everywhere allow to sweep over the earth, _ helpless to [stand] touch the law which might save their husbands, their children, themselves, _ these drunkards wives, living in sorrow, eating the bread of bitterness & shedding the tears of despair, _ moaning, shuddering, crying out in intolerable agony to God, _ have these all the rights they want already, _ [the blasphemy to the name of] the sorrowful wail that goes up from these blasted lives & broken hearts makes answer. Leaving all this I marvel at the audacity of any man in saying that women will have their rights just so soon as they desire them. _ that the masses are perfectly satisfied & that the exceeding few who are dissentientae & that these discontented for compensate themselves by talk for the deprivation of votes. [from all the rights they want already, _ I marvel at the selfishness & short-sightedness of any happy woman in declaring that she wished to do nothing & to interfere in so wise with these][questions of government & law. _ that her mission is higher & her work sufficient without it. _ I answer _ In a world full of life that lack bread Hud. of souls that lack light, there are mouths to be fed. There are wounds to be healed there is work to be done. _ How better done than by throwing the weight of your influence on this struggling &.] Ah! friends how do you know. _ _ women as well as men die & give no sign of the hope of their lives, or the tempest within them. _ women there have been women there are to day who living cramped & tortured lives, strive like caged eagles to get free, & never could beat down the bars [which] that circumstances & predjudices had raised. _ The world said the few who do reach freedom & watching their bold upward flight _ says rashly will can work all things _ but the fettered eagles, those who strive, pant, dash their insufficient strength against the walls that confine them, _ lie broken & dead at last _ who thinks of them _ who counts them? [*23*] I marvel at the woman who assents to the idle declaration that because a woman is a mother therefore she should have nothing to do with politics, therefore her mission on earth is too high & holy a one to tamper with these unclean things. _ I laugh a little I confess at the inconsistencies of men. _ When a woman [says aught about touching the] desires to make or unmake laws _ [men] society cries out to her. _ Take heed woman. _ thy mission on earth is that of a mother not of a statesman, thy tools are to grave not upon stone or parchment, but upon the material that [last] endures through eternity, _ thy province is with children not with laws, & oh how much higher, holier, more divine thy work & place, how much more exalted thy rights & priveleges than those of men. _ Behold again this same woman having borne children, cared for them, fed clothed educated them, worked for their temporal welfare & their eternal good. _ the father wishes to apprentice these boys of hers to some work of degradation & infamy. _ the mother protests, - in vain, - or driven from home by the foul presence of the man who once may have been good & true to her, _ She pleads for her children _ in vain, _ then says the law, made by men for men _ the child is the man's. _ when a woman is [to be deprived] refused the right to make laws _ it is on the plea that something better than laws _ children are hers. _ When she pleads for these same children _ [this very law] for some right in them, this very law tells her, the children are not yours. _ they belong to the husband. _ hers when rights are to be denied her thereby, his when rights are to be denied her thereby, _ oh consistency, _ thou art a fiend. So far from motherhood being a disqualification, it alone is a sufficient argument [alone] for the ballot. _ It is time that people realized fully the fact that the mothers office is not merely to give bodies to the earth but souls to Eternity. _ here is her workmanship, _ the man works with the tools of earth in wood 24 & clay _ the woman, [with] ah what finite tongue can do justice to her infinite work. _ a seer has well said that the "gate[s] of gifts closes at ones wish." _ [what the mother makes] in a peculiar sense a sense in which a child can never be the fathers, is it the mothers, _ the Slave Code [which vile & infamous as it was] as it was offspring of wicked men nevertheless has at its foundation the law of nature. _ by which the child followed the condition of the mother. _ _ Steadily as the world has advanced women have [been] advanced. _ Steadily, as men have grown dissatisfied with old habits & servitudes, women have unconsciously often, grown dissatisfied with theirs. [What makes the masses of] Wherever Society is best to-day, _ wherever the noblest ideas prevail, is just where women for the last quarter of a century have had the greatest opportunity _ the widest chance, _ [what] New-England the pre-eminently whole of this North as compared with the South. _ What makes the masses of men in this section so true to liberty, so far above the pastin their devotion to justice, so ready to fight the battles of the weak, so quick to seize on everything in the shape of reform & progress? What! the protest - often unconscious, in their mother's natures before their eyes ever saw the light. _ this birth is dimly recognized to-day in the question which the world to-day puts in regard to a great man, _ who was his mother, even tho' she may have died when he was a child. _ It is not then merely the influence of the mothers life, [paining], prayers. _ it is the stuff with which she had to work, the materials of her own body & heart & spirit & brain which she gave to create. To this great end then she should have the largest culture, the finest training, as the more delicate & intricate the work which the man expects to do, the larger & closer his study _ she should have the advantage of schools, of life, of experience, above all of responsibility. So far from voting, an interest in law & government [*25*] interfering with her real delicacy it would elevate & ennoble her, for she knowing the practical evils, as she does not know & so cannot care about them now, would everywhere strive to make the world into which her boys going, something like the home from which she sends them forth. _ as delicacy, nobility, or [high] standard of manhood, womanhood, action are there so she would strive to put these into politics, life government, the world. If politics are as you say too filthy for her to dabble in them, I say she would make them better, _ not because she is wiser of brain, or larger of thought than men, but because she has more conscience & more heart. _ [No] things which I hear, tho', make me sadder of heart than this constant declaration [on the part] from the lips of good & refined men that the science & work of governing this great republic, is filthy & degrading. _ if it is so it is because just such men as those who [have] make this complaint have left this high [not to say nay, sublime duty] to the ignorant & the vile. _ If Primary meetings as at present conducted are not fit places for women to go to, _ no I say, they are not, & they should be abolished accordingly. What [are] constitutes the actual governing power in the land to-day, _ the legislators, chosen by [the] Conventions, the Conventions being composed of reps from the Primary Meetings, the primary meetings [f can see the] [numbering] composed of the professional politicians, the drunken [row o] loafers, the corner alderman, _ what not, of the refuse of society. I maintain that the duty of governing this country, _ the hope of the world, _ the safeguard of liberty for the race, - governing it well down to the minutest particulars [*26*] is a duty & a privilege alike, _ full of responsibility, full of dignity, _ [sublime] nay one might justly say, remembering the magnitude & greatness of the work that it is sublime, _ & this duty never will be properly discharged, _ [justice will never be done] till the men of refinement, of thought, of earnestness, of cultivation, take their wives & daughters on their arms, & go into these same meetings & conventions, in somewhat of the spirit at least, with which they would [go into] enter a church. _ the noblest of Sciences should have for its practical execution, the finest of workmanship & the purest of workers. All this was demonstrated in the war, [then the best of man & the best of women gave their best to serve the country.] there the best of men & women alike were interested warmly, [deeply] profoundly in the salvation of the country, _ in the great questions of liberty & humanity then at stake. _What women gained then they can never lose, - that is marked in the increased activity & interest with which the best of them are every where entering into work outside their homes, - work in some shape for the benefit & help of their kind. Let us not be deceived my friends, - that which we gained in the war we gained for all the race, - [we said] it was a favorite saying that we were fighting the battles of the world. - this revolution was but [part of] an [scene] act, - loud & sublime, in the great drama of Progress & Reform. - after it follows another & another, - the principles for which we [fought] contended the claims we asserted for [liberty &] justice include women as well as men. The great tide of the Nineteenth Century sits towards equality & liberty for [all] [the] each individual member of the race. - Can you stop this tide? [Canute] Kernes scourging the winds, Canute commanding the waves to toll backward are but types of that folly which would stand up & say to this majestic 27 wave of public opinion - thus far! [In peace or in tumult, by means of old institutions when these ins are flexible over the ruins of the old ins when those ins oppose an unbending resistance the great march of society proceeds & must proceed. the feeble efforts of individuals to bear back are lost & swept away in the mighty rush with which the species goes onward.] As [one standing looking out over] the ocean has under the waves of water which we see, waves of force which are invisible, so in human affairs then is our inflexible logic, which develops, which fashions, which redresses, the facts, the laws, the morals, the people, are better under all human things then are things divine. Ah friend let us make sure that we are on the right side of this logic, that we are working with these divine things for the temporal & spiritual good of our kind, & beingthus sure, let us fight our fight valiantly & faithfully, that, [till] called at last out of the worlds heat & struggle, we can lay down our arms, [to be] & enter a sphere wher truth complete & right triumphant no longer need to wage war.