Elizabeth Cady Stanton SPEECHES & WRITINGS FILE Article: "Self-Government - the Best Form for Self Development" , June 29, 1901 [*7*] JUNE 29, 1901. SELF-GOVERNMENT THE BEST FORM FOR [*7a*] SELF-DEVELOPMENT. --------- BY ELIZABETH CADY STANTON. --------- The basic idea of a republic is the right of self-government, the right of every citizen to choose his own representatives and to have a voice in the laws under which he lives; and as this right can be secured only by the exercise of the right of suffrage -- the ballot, in the hand of every qualified citizen, constitutes the true political status of the people in a republic. The right of suffrage is simply the right to govern one's self. Every human being is born into the world with this right, and the desire to exercise it comes naturally with this feeling of life's responsibilities. "The highest earthly desire of a ripened mind," says Thomas Arnold, "is the desire of taking an active share in the great work of government." Those, only, who are capable of appreciating this dignity, can measure the extent to which women are defrauded, and they, only, can measure the loss to the councils of the nation of the wisdom of representative women. They who say that women do not desire the right of suffrage, that they prefer masculine domination to self-government, falsify every page of history, every fact in human experience. Even children at the earliest age are always in a chronic condition of rebellion against the control of nurses, elder brothers and sisters, parents and teachers, ever showing a decided preference to have their own way; in other words, to govern themselves. Boys, in schools and colleges, find their chief happiness in disobeying rules, in circumventing and defying teachers and professors, their youthful pranks so many declarations of independence, affording one of the most pleasing topics of conversation in after life. The general unrest of the people under kings, emperors and czars, in secret plottings, or in open defiance, against self-constituted authority, shows the settled hatred of all subjects to any form of government to which they have never consented. But it is said on this point that women are peculiar, that they differ from all other classes, that being naturally dependent they prefer being governed by others. Here again the facts of life contradict the assertion. Women have always been in a state of half-concealed resistance to fathers and husbands, and all self-constituted authorities, as far as they dared, as far as good policy permitted them to manifest their real feelings. It has taken the whole power of the civil and the canon laws to hold women in the subordinate position which it is said she willingly accepts. If woman naturally has no will, no self assertion, no opinions of her own, what means the terrible persecution of the sex in all forms of religious fanaticism, culminating in witchcraft, in which scarce one wizard to a thousand witches was sacrificed? So powerful and merciless has been the struggle to dominate the feminine element in humanity that we may well wonder at the steady, persistent resistance maintained by woman through the centuries. To every step of progress that she has made from slavery to the partial freedom she now enjoys, the State and the Church have alike made the most cruel opposition, and yet, under all circumstance, she has shown her love of the individual freedom, her desire for self-government, while her achievements in practical affairs and her courage in the great emergencies of life have vindicated her capacity to exercise this right. These, one and all, are so many testimonials in favor of self-government, and yet this is the only form of government that has never yet been fairly tried in the home, the college, or the State. The few experiments that have been made here and there in exceptional schools, homes and territories, have only been partially successful, because the whole surrounding influences have been adverse. When we awake to the great fact that our firesides and school-rooms are important places for training the citizens of a republic, the rights and duties involved in self-government will fill a larger place in the curriculum of our academies and universities. Principal Twitchell of Hartford, Conn , in a paper which he read the other day before the Hartford County Teachers' Association, made the following practical suggestion about government in the school: [*7b*] "There is such a thing as a teacher being a monarch in the school-room, and that, too, in absolute authority, asking no favors from his pupils, receiving no inspiration from them, in short, without the pupil having any share in the government of the school, taking no part in it only that of an obedient and dutiful subject performing the will of his master. I say that such government is possible, yes, I am inclined to think that it is the most common kind of school government, and not only the most common, but the easiest -- but not the best. It is the kind of government that demands a powerful will on the part of the teacher -- it is of the head and not the heart. I can conceive of a model school, as to order, being secured by will-force government. I think it quite probable that a better ordered school will be secured by such government that by that teacher who is trying to rule by love, who is continually trying to win the love of her pupils, to make them feel that they have a responsibility and that they ought to do right because it is right. But the model school is not the end; it is the means to an end, and that end is the perfect citizen. Which form of government is the best adapted to secure that end? It seems to me that it is that form which directs not only what shall not, and what shall be, done, but how, and why, it ought to be done; that form which sets before the pupil in a clear light the difference between right and wrong and demands of him or her an act of judgment, a decision between the two." The same principle hold good in the home. Under one despotic will no doubt all things move along seemingly with order and harmony; but where there is no open resistance there may be, and generally is, settled discontent. Where the experiment of self-government is made in the home each member of the family must be trained in the a b c of individual rights. Each must learn the exact limits of his own rights and the boundary line beyond which he cannot go without infringing on those of another. This will necessarily invoke much patient educational work and prolonged discussion, immense self-control, and constant yielding one to another, the will in all cases being subordinate to a sense of justice and equality. This lesson well learned in childhood and in youth is the best possible preparation for good citizens for the State. If we would have wise statesmen to guide our national affairs our children must be early taught the broad difference between liberty and license, between a self-government that invokes a knowledge of the laws of one's being and the interests of society, and that lawlessness which overrides all the most sacred relations between man and man at the will or caprice of the individual. Rightly understood, there can be no conflicting interests between individuals and society. The true interests of all lie in the same direction. [*7c*] Again, self-government is not only the form most desired by all classes, but it promotes the highest [*7d*]human development, because it requires for its success. [?] merely for the sake [?]were cruelly false [?]least foundation of [?]a shadow in the sun- [?y;] but, even suppose [?] is it not better to be [?]r own honest thoughts [?]trying to speak the [?]which is too often the [?]rs? [?]ng Colonel Ingersoll's [?]day in various pulpits [?]s. It was a day on [?]took occasion to once [?]on the great Agnostic. [?]was still, the lips that [?]them were dumb, and, [?]ed wife and children [?]the remains of their [?]s? [?]ligence on the part of God must [?]ed for. Perhaps he was off visit- [?]other end of the universe, and [?]return found the Boers in the [?]e British and sorely beset. He [?]grieved and would forth with de [?]Manchurian railway siding affair. [?]an explanation seem probable? [?]will not be accepted, but it is the [?]gy which I can offer for God if [?]is correct. [?]ruger is right what must be said [?]y million or so of English-speak- [?]outside of the United States? [?]their religious worth? What will [?]edness to faith and their love of [?]avail them when the end comes? [?]ll hypocrites, heathens and bar- [?]are they a sort of the ignorantly [?]people, who imagine that they [?]God, when in reality they have [?]all. Judging from the appearances [?]be inclined to think that God [?]ting the British entirely at the [?]the Boers. We are inclined to [?]ever, that God is helping neither [?]atants and that the issue will be [?]atter of "might is right." [?]t our duty to defend God by say- [?]has no concern in the savage [?]of humanity in this instance, [?], the captains at the head of [?]army, just before the battle, call [?]e God for victory and for the [?]ilation of their enemy. This [?]esented as the father and the en- [?]of men. By what right, then, [?]help one nation more than he [?]r? There are good and bad of [?]ities. Taken as a whole, the one [?]as good as the other, so far as [?]concerned. In a time of war [?]cease his religious invocations. DAVID DALZIEL [?]Mills, B.C. Canada [?]VIST and AGNOSTIC INVESTIGATOR: During the last [?]the Agnostic has been given more [?]attention, thanks to Professor [?] [?] If the clergyman knew that some[?] erwoman had baptized the infant[?] not legally refuse to read the ser[?] unbaptized infant is refused ad[?] the "sacred edifice" and burie[?] dog" This is regarded by most[?] an indiginity, and by many as inv[?] poor little baby in serious diffc[?] won't take much care of him[?] baptized. I have been asked to[?] infant a few hours old, which wa[?] to die, for fear it would pass aw[?] this testimonial to its respectability[?] my testimonial was of any servi[?] never could ascertain. The foli[?] refer to a case, in which the[?] would willing have performed[?] mony, but was forbidden by l[?] publication gave rise to some c[?] There have always[?] among people from h[?] the tribe to the mati[?] belief. There have [?] know and the I do[?] thought with two sides[?] into two parties - th[?] Agnostic. For t[?] ROBERT G. INGE[?] PROPOSED[?] A recent issue of[?] Herald contains an art[?] Irving Rasmus, in[?] unfavorably on the p[?] Robert G. Ingersoll,[?] words grate on my in[?] cause I knew him wel[?] world was more worth[?] He was the idolized b[?] father, both of who[?] windowless palace of[?] heart full of their ch[?] with a clear knowledge[?] (for they were my ide[?] did manhood), my ear[?] heartless and unsympa[?] to which the Rev. Ras[?] ance. do not for one[?] the great leader of F[?] defense. His grand, g[?] than any living tong[?] own honor. But sure[?] for me to write these[?] The Rev. Rasmus has[?] Colonel Ingersoll's att[?] Is he dishonest, or d[?] his was a war on supe[?] and wrong in a thou[?] the avowed champion[?] thinking and right[?] one's life to the bette[?] tace, to educate the[?] to be brave enough[?] to live and die a splen[?] Robert G. Ingersoll is[?] and the lasting grati[?] large. [?] [?], human kind divided [?]e Positivist and the [?] KASPER. [?]he Boston Investigator. RSOLL AND THE MEMORIAL. [?]the Chicago Record- [?]cle by the Rev. Henry [?]which he comments [?]roposed memorial to [?]Now, there careless [?]most sensibilities, be- [?], and no man in the [?]y of love and esteem. [?]rother of my idolized [?]now "sleep in the [?]rest"; and, with my [?]erished memories and [?]of their noble lives [?]als of true and splen- [?]is ill-attuned to such [?]athetic ideas as those [?]mus has given utter- [?]moment imagine that [?]eethought needs any [?]ood life speaks plainer [?]ue can speak in his [?]ly it is a labor of love [?]words in his behalf. [?]the same old story of [?]acks on Christianity. [?]es he not know that [?]rstition and ignorance [?]sand forms? He was [?]of right doing, right [?]ving. If to devote [?]ment of the human [?]people to think and [?]o tell their thoughts, [?]did hero, - then truly [?]worthy a memorial [?]ude of the world at [?]Rasmus, like many [?]t only jealous of the [?]stic wore in life, but [?]he myriad flowers of [?]rts to gladly give his [?]this Christianity? [?]ge who said of Colonel [?]ags are pure as the [?]which, I am sure, is [?]of some portions of [?] will charitably sup- [?]. But the Rev. Ras- [?]reach out with eager [?]f possible, the fair [?]ds and hearts would [?]onored dead; but the [?]ught from the wealth [?]ought from his pure [?]ght from his golden [?]that is beyond their [?]"spotless as a star" [?]e ages, growing more [?]th growing time. [?]charged him with [?]mischief in the bud, [?]the loss of a hundred [?]e ruin of many thou- of a person[?] strated dea[?] tive, includi[?] Show me one [minister] who [?] try better, who was more patrioti[?] Show me one minister whose [?] more in accordance with his [?] than was that of Colonel Ingersol[?] It maddens these vipers afor[?] they cannot find flaws in this n[?] public or private life, so they inv[?] They know that he treated his [?] fairly, that he confined himself [?] ting theories and disdained, with [?] bility of character, to smirch or so [?] orist. His genius is a thorn in th[?] his arguments, absolutely unansw[?] a perpetual torture to them. But, happily, there are some re[?] tlemen even among ministers, [?] above referred to does not include[?] body. there are some who are [?] attack the opinions and not th[?] reputation of Ingersoll, and for s[?] no word of disparagement. But what can malice really [?] cannot detract from the record of [?] did man, for truth is the best [?] Truth will tell the generations y[?] how hard he labored for the gene[?] ing of the human race; how th[?] light of his logic withered the ph[?] superstition and ignorance. Tru[?] how he liberated liberty and [?] chains that fettered freedom, an[?] "joyfully extinguished the awf[?] hell"; that he hated slavery; that [?] for more humane treatment of e[?] all our State reformatories and p[?] tending that criminals, even, ar[?] ral product of heredity and e[?] and are not to be reformed thro[?] and degradation. And truth w[?] lovingly he battled for the children [?] He was their champion and the [?] Surely, he "watched to ease the [?] the world, laboriously tracing wh[?] and want may yet be, better." [?] weaver her subtleties, truth need [?] Within his heart blossomed t[?] poetry, of music and of art. I[?] simple words what Nature told [?] true translator. He was a poet, [?] the weary world the roses of his [?] the great world will listen and [?] "weep and wonder" to the end of [?] "There was, there is, no gentler [?] manlier man." Mary A. Ing[?] Prospect, Wis. For the Boston Inv[?] UNBAPTIZED INFANT [?] Editor Investigator: --As [?] doubtless aware, the law in Engla[?] a clergyman of the Established Ch[?] ing the burial service over an [?] other person whom he knows to [?] unbaptized. Some ministers neve[?] question, and if they do not actu[?] that the persons brought for buria[?] they bury them and say nothing. [?] enough, any kind of baptizism, [?] by anybody is held to be sufficie[?] ful administration the broadest possible education. If a man assumes to take care of his own body, he must understand the science of life, the physical laws, hygiene, his own constitution and his relations to hte outside world. With such knowledge, he could maintain a far more uniform condition of health than in ignorance with the usual advice of a skillful physician. So, to attain the highest dignities of citizenship in a republic, one must understand the principles of political economy, the social, moral and industrial interests of society and the commerce of the world. This is in both cases the approximate knowledge a man must aim at in order to discharge his duties to himself and his country. Can anyone doubt the greater stimulus to development under the pressure of such responsibilities than in a condition of dependence on self-constituted authorities, who assume to do the necessary thinking and acting for the people? The greater the responsibility laid on an individual, within his capacity to meet it, the greater the development. The virtues of self-reliance, self-assertion and self protection all grow out of the necessity of independent thought and action. And in this independence the highest happiness is achieved. A feeling of safety and repose can only be enjoyed by those who have confidence in themselves. The calm, cool self-possession that belongs to those who have the courage to meet the dangers in life's emergencies should inspire us with the desire to educate to the uttermost all our faculties and powers. In crossing a dangerous stream on a single plank contrast the coolness of the man trained to swim, or walk a rope, with the timidity of one who has never learned to balance himself, or to keep his head above water. Contrast the self-reliance of Ida Lewis, in her life-boat on a stormy coast, resting drowning men, with a helpless woman, in case of accident, on a smooth lake. Contrast the well-trained logician, master of the question in debate, in the halls of legislation, with one whose powers are untrained and whose knowledge is superficial. Yet, all these might have equal natural capacity. These cases simply show that, while some have been in a position to develop their powers, others have suffered from neglect or repression. There is just this difference in an individual or a nation trained to self-government or crippled by undue authority. Now the right of suffrage in a republic mans self-government, self-government means education, development, self-reliance, independence, courage in the hour of danger. That women may attain these virtues we demand the exercise of this right. Not that we should at once be transformed into a higher order of beings, with all the elements of sovereignty, wisdom, goodness and power full fledged, but because the right of suffrage is the primary school in which the citizen learns how to use the ballot as a weapon of defense; it is the "open sesame" to the land of freedom and equality. The ballot is the sceptre of power in the hand of every citizen. Woman can never have an equal chance with man in the struggle of life until she, too, possesses this right and wields this power. So long as women have no voice in the government under which they live they will be an ostracized class, and invidious distinctions will be made against them in the world of work. Thrown on their own resources, they have all the hardships meant have to encounter in earning their daily bread, with the added disabilities that grow out of disfranchisement. [*7F*] Men of the Republic, why make life harder for your daughters by these artificial distinctions? Surely, if governments were made to protect the weak against the strong, they are in greater need than your stalwart sons of every political right that can give them protection, dignity and power. We are asking Congress to-day for the Sixteenth Amendment to the National Constitution that shall secure the exercise of the right of suffrage to the women of the nation. We ask for the following reasons: 1. Because the disfranchisement of one half the people deprives that half of the best means of education, self-protection and self-development. Men make laws for women, then forbid them, in most States, to enter their law schools, or halls of legislation, where they might learn what these laws are. They try women in their courts for transgressing a criminal code of which they know nothing, a code made by men. The lawyers in our courts are men, the judges me, the jurors men, the halls of justice packed with men. The sentence women to jails and prisons governed by men, and there is no appeal from masculine legislation and discipline. The feminine element in humanity finds no expression in our criminal code, or modes of punishment. It is bad enough to have criminals of our sex subject wholly to male espionage, and still worse to have the liberties of respectable women crippled at every turn by the same power in the world of work. If a woman desires to enter some department of industry that her grandmother never thought of, half he force that she needs for the new experiment is exhausted in overcoming masculine opposition. When a certain Mrs. Miller applied for a license to navigate a vessel she owned up the Mississippi River, she was refused by petty authorities, not because she was ignorant of the science of navigation, but because she was a woman. This was such a high-handed act of injustice that the press was loud in denunciation, and demanded that, if the woman could pass the required examination, she should receive her certificate, which, in due time, was accorded her by the decision of a judge. This delay is one of the effects of disfranchisement. Being deprived of the fundamental right of a citizen, by arbitrary authority, the protection of all lesser rights is at the option of those who chance to administer the law. On the appointment of Miss Pemberton, postmistress at Fredonia, N.Y., a correspondent of the New York Tribune, after stating that the contest going on over the various applications for the office -- among others a soldier who had lost both legs in the war, a Mr. Wilson, --says: "The end of the matter, however, has not been reached yet, and it seems more than probable that the soldier element, whose votes senators, especially candidates for the Presidency, consider worth courting just now, will be put forward to use its influence in the Senate to prevent Miss Pemberton's confirmation. Senator Logan may counted upon to exert himself for Wilson. There are others who are ready to assist him. Miss Pemberton's promotion, her friends say, would be in accordance with civil service principles. They assert that she has experience, that she is competent and in every way fitted to discharge the duties of the office." [*7g*] But she has no vote, and cannot help re-elect senators! What is competency, long experience, civil service reform weighed in the balance with a ballot when the party needs votes! If Miss Pemberton is confirmed, her merit carries her through; if not, it is because the soldiers' votes outweighed her experience. It needs no great wisdom to understand why politicians should give offices to those who have votes in preference to those who have not. Thus are a woman's resources for self-support limited by her inferior political status. And the same is true in the department of education. Had girls been prospective voters from the foundation of the Government their higher education would have been considered equally important with their brothers, and all the colleges and universities would have been open to them to-day, while the opinions and judgment of women would have had a more decided influence on popular thought. If on the hardest rock you let water fall, drop by drop, an impression is made at last. 2. The disenfranchisement of one half the people, deprives the State of the united wisdom of man and woman (that "concensus of the competent") so necessary in national affairs, making our Government an oligarchy of males instead of a republic of the people, thus perpetuating, with all its evils, a dominant masculine civilization. Again, it is said that, although women do not vote, yet they have an indirect influence in Government through their husbands and brothers. Yes, an "irresponsible power" of all kinds of influence most dangerous. In a great meeting in New York, in favor of placing more power in the hands of the mayor, the Hon. William M. Evarts said: "Rely upon it, gentlemen, that the darling of the human heart, under every form of government, is power without responsibility. Rely upon it that every step forward in government in England and here is to insist that there shall not be -- no, not for a moment, - any separation between power and responsibility, and if we want a mayor, let him be responsible as a mayor, and if we want aldermen, let them be responsible as aldermen, and not have the chief seat in power the man who is neither mayor nor alderman." The irresponsible power that women are exerting in Government to day is one of the worst influences at work. Educated to concentrate their thoughts and ambitions on personal and family aggrandizement, their sole interest in politics is not the highest good of the nation but the promotion of their husband's position to wealth and power; their influence is not to intensify the feelings of patriotism and philanthropy of the men at their firesides but their family selfishness. If they shared in the responsibilities of Government they would better understand its duties, and, with broader ambitions, have broader interests. The dogged, unreasonable persecutions of sex in all ages, the evident determination to eliminate, as far as possible, the feminine element in humanity, has been the most fruitful cause of the moral chaos the race has suffered under every form of government and religion. If it were possible to destroy the equilibrium between the positive and negative electricity, between the centripetal and centrifugal forces, we should have the same chaos in the material world. What these forces are in the solar system the masculine and feminine elements are in human affairs, and not until they are in a position of exact equality, in perfect equilibrium, can we realize the highest civilization of which the race is capable. The first step toward this is political equality, that secured, equality of rights in every department of life will in the near future be ours. The loss to women, themselves, of the highest development of which they are capable is sad, but when this involves a lower type of manhood and danger to our free institutions, it is still more sad! The primal work in every country, for its own safety, should be the education and freedom of woman, seeing that her powerful indirect influence is generally acknolwedged. There is only one road to safety, and that is, to give to woman all the advantages and opportunities of improvement that lie within her reach and thus broaden her sympathies, clear her vision, enlarge her charity and strengthen her judgment. Galton, in his great work on "Heredity" says: "Something must be done to lift the race up a few degrees, to make them strong enough to cope successfully with the tangled problems of our present intense civilization. The brain of man is already overweighted, and, as in the nature of things even more complex questions will arise, where shall we find the statesmen equal to the duty of the hour? From what source shall they gather the added strength for the larger work?" Where shall we look for this new power, this higher inspiration, but in a grander type of womanhood? And where shall the political party of the future look for the great moral idea with which again to rouse the enthusiasm of the American people but in the enfranchisement of one-half her citizens? At a political dinner, on Washington's birthday, in the Brooklyn Academy of Music, President Seelye of Amherst College said: There are no great political issues at present in either party. I think we ought to note the fact that the leaders of the two great political parties at present prominent in the nation are seeking to hoodwink this people by the pretence of great issues, when really these parties have no great issues between them. It does not need an acute discernment to discover that these two political parties are not now divided by any political principles. Search the party platform through and through, not the speeches, or the votes, of the party representatives in Congress, read the utterances of the party press, and find if you can a single political principle to which either of these parties may now be said to be committed in contradistinction from the other. "Sooner or later we must have a party which will embrace a principle. The American people have too much moral earnestness to be long content with make-believes. They know the difference between living questions and dead issues. They will not play at politics a great while. They will not perpetuate party organizations which no longer mean anything. The only question - as their past history shows, and as is most hopeful for the future - which can deeply stir and permanently enlist the prevailing sympathies of the American people is a moral question, wherein not merely the expedient and inexpedient, but the right and wrong, stand out in clearly defined issues. It was not the political inexpediency of separation from the mother country, but it was the wrong of taxation without representation which inspired the purpose and secured the triumph of our independence. I was not the political inexpediency of slavery, but its injustice, its wrong, which stirred the North and set the nation in arms for its overthrow. And the party still which is to lead the nation is not the party which busies itself most with questions of profit and loss, and is certainly not the party whose main end is to get into office and maintain itself in political power, but the party which is not afraid to plant itself on the right issues, which it maintains simply because it is right. And if the Republican party is to keep its ascendency in the National Administration it must have a clear eye to see, and a courageous heart to follow, right measures and only righteous men." When we behold the righteous man at the helm of the government then may we hope that woman's hour has come. We have quoted a few opinions of leading men, on various points of government, gathered from the journals of the last few weeks, not because they are new on this platform, for we have echoed and re-echoed these principles for forty years, but simply to show that our scholars and statesmen are gradually learning the lessons we have taught them. This may help to give us confidence in ourselves and renewed hope for the speedy triumph of that fundamental principle of a just government, equal rights for all. The great argument for popular government, says George William Curtis, is not the essential righteousness of a majority but the celestial law that subordinates the brute force of numbers to intellectual and moral ascendency as the immeasurable floods of ocean follow the moon. Transcribed and reviewed by volunteers participating in the By The People project at crowd.loc.gov.