Eighty Years and More; Reminiscences 1815-1897
proved her capabilities and the falseness of these prophecies by taking
her place in the engine room and managing its workings with perfect
ease. Six power looms, on which women wove carpets, webbing, silks,
etc., were run by this engine. At a later period the printing of _The
New Century for Woman_, a paper published by the centennial commission
in the woman's building, was done by its means. Miss Allison declared
the work to be more cleanly, more pleasant, and infinitely less
fatiguing than cooking over a kitchen stove. "Since I have been
compelled to earn my own living," she said, "I have never been engaged
in work I like so well. Teaching school is much harder, and one is not
paid so well." She expressed her confidence in her ability to manage the
engines of an ocean steamer, and said that there were thousands of small
engines in use in various parts of the country, and no reason existed
why women should not be employed to manage them,--following the
profession of engineer as a regular business,--an engine requiring far
less attention than is given by a nursemaid or a mother to a child.
But to have made the Woman's Pavilion grandly historic, upon its walls
should have been hung the yearly protest of Harriet K. Hunt against
taxation without representation; the legal papers served upon the Smith
sisters when, for their refusal to pay taxes while unrepresented, their
Alderney cows were seized and sold; the papers issued by the city of
Worcester for the forced sale of the house and lands of Abby Kelly
Foster, the veteran abolitionist, because she refused to pay taxes,
giving the same reason our ancestors gave when they resisted taxation; a
model of Bunker Hill monument, its foundation laid by Lafayette in 1825,
but which remained unfinished nearly twenty years, until the famous
German danseuse, Fanny Ellsler, gave the proceeds of a public
performance for that purpose. With these should have been exhibited
framed copies of all the laws bearing unjustly upon women--those which
rob her of her name, her earnings, her property, her children, her
person; also the legal papers in the case of Susan B. Anthony, who was
tried and fined for claiming her right to vote under the Fourteenth
Amendment, and the decision of Mr. Justice Miller in the case of Myra
Bradwell, denying national protection for woman's civil rights; and the
later decision of Chief Justice Waite of the United States Supreme Court
against Virginia L. Minor, denying women national protection for their
political rights; decisions in favor of State rights which imperil the
liberties not only of all women, but of every white man in the nation.
Woman's most fitting contributions to the Centennial Exposition would
have been these protests, laws, and decisions, which show her political
slavery. But all this was left for rooms outside of the centennial
grounds, upon Chestnut Street, where the National Woman's Suffrage
Association hoisted its flag, made its protests, and wrote the
Declaration of Rights of the women of the United States.
To many thoughtful people it seemed captious and unreasonable for women
to complain of injustice in this free land, amidst such universal
rejoicings. When the majority of women are seemingly happy, it is
natural to suppose that the discontent of the minority is the result of
their unfortunate individual idiosyncrasies, and not of adverse
influences in established conditions. But the history of the world shows
that the vast majority, in every generation, passively accept the
conditions into which they are born, while those who demanded larger
liberties are ever a small, ostracized minority, whose claims are
ridiculed and ignored. From our standpoint we would honor any Chinese
woman who claimed the right to her feet and powers of locomotion; the
Hindoo widows who refused to ascend the funeral pyre of their husbands;
the Turkish women who threw off their masks and veils and left the
harem; the Mormon women who abjured their faith and demanded monogamic
relations. Why not equally honor the intelligent minority of American
women who protest against the artificial disabilities by which their
freedom is limited and their development arrested? That only a few,
under any circumstances, protest against the injustice of
long-established laws and customs, does not disprove the fact of the
oppressions, while the satisfaction of the many, if real, only proves
their apathy and deeper degradation. That a majority of the women of the
United States accept, without protest, the disabilities which grow out
of their disfranchisement is simply an evidence of their ignorance and
cowardice, while the minority who demand a higher political status
clearly prove their superior intelligence and wisdom.
At the close of the Forty-seventh Congress we made two new demands:
First, for a special committee to consider all questions in regard to
the civil and political rights of women. We naturally asked the
question, As Congress has a special committee on the rights of Indians,
why not on those of women? Are not women, as a factor in civilization,
of more importance than Indians? Secondly, we asked for a room, in the
Capitol, where our committee could meet, undisturbed, whenever they saw
fit. Though these points were debated a long time, our demands were
acceded to at last. We now have our special committee, and our room,
with "Woman Suffrage" in gilt letters, over the door. In our struggle
to achieve this, while our champion, the senior Senator from
Massachusetts, stood up bravely in the discussion, the opposition not
only ridiculed the special demand, but all attempts to secure the civil
and political rights of women. As an example of the arguments of the
opposition, I give what the Senator from Missouri said. It is a fair
specimen of all that was produced on that side of the debate. Mr. Vest's
poetical flights are most inspiring:
"The Senate now has forty-one committees, with a small army of
messengers and clerks, one-half of whom, without exaggeration, are
literally without employment. I shall not pretend to specify the
committees of this body which have not one single bill, resolution,
or proposition of any sort pending before them, and have not had
for months. But, Mr. President, out of all committees without
business, and habitually without business, in this body, there is
one that, beyond any question, could take jurisdiction of this
matter and do it ample justice. I refer to that most respectable
and antique institution, the Committee on Revolutionary Claims. For
thirty years it has been without business. For thirty long years
the placid surface of that parliamentary sea has been without one
single ripple. If the Senator from Massachusetts desires a tribunal
for a calm, judicial equilibrium and examination--a tribunal far
from the 'madding crowd's ignoble strife'--a tribunal eminently
respectable, dignified and unique; why not send this question to
the Committee on Revolutionary Claims? It is eminently proper that
this subject should go to that committee because, if there is any
revolutionary claim in this country, it is that of woman suffrage.
(Laughter.) It revolutionizes society; it revolutionizes religion;
it revolutionizes the Constitution and laws; and it revolutionizes
the opinions of those so old-fashioned among us as to believe that
the legitimate and proper sphere of woman is the family circle, as
wife and mother, and not as politician and voter--those of us who
are proud to believe that
"Woman's noblest station is retreat:
Her fairest virtues fly from public sight;
Domestic worth--that shuns too strong a light.
"Before that Committee on Revolutionary Claims why could not this
most revolutionary of all claims receive immediate and ample
attention? More than that, as I said before, if there is any
tribunal that could give undivided time and dignified attention, is
it not this committee? If there is one peaceful haven of rest,
never disturbed by any profane bill or resolution of any sort, it
is the Committee on Revolutionary Claims. It is, in parliamentary
life, described by that ecstatic verse in Watts'
hymn--
"There shall I bathe my wearied soul
In seas of endless rest.
And not one wave of trouble roll
Across my peaceful breast.
"By all natural laws, stagnation breeds disease and death, and what
could stir up this most venerable and respectable institution more
than an application of the strong-minded, with short hair and
shorter skirts, invading its dignified realm and elucidating all
the excellences of female suffrage. Moreover, if these ladies could
ever succeed in the providence of God in obtaining a report from
that committee, it would end this question forever; for the public
at large and myself included, in view of that miracle of female
blandishment and female influence, would surrender at once, and
female suffrage would become constitutional and lawful. Sir, I
insist upon it that, in deference to this committee, in deference
to the fact that it needs this sort of regimen and medicine, this
whole subject should be so referred."
This gives a very fair idea of the character of the arguments produced
by our opponents, from the inauguration of the movement. But, as there
are no arguments in a republican government in favor of an aristocracy
of sex, ridicule was really the only available weapon. After declaring
"that no just government can be formed without the consent of the
governed," "that taxation without representation is tyranny," it is
difficult to see on what basis one-half the people are disfranchised.
CHAPTER XX.
WRITING "THE HISTORY OF WOMAN SUFFRAGE."
The four years following the Centennial were busy, happy ones, of varied
interests and employments, public and private. Sons and daughters
graduating from college, bringing troops of young friends to visit us;
the usual matrimonial entanglements, with all their promises of
celestial bliss intertwined with earthly doubts and fears; weddings,
voyages to Europe, business ventures--in this whirl of plans and
projects our heads, hearts, and hands were fully occupied. Seven boys
and girls dancing round the fireside, buoyant with all life's joys
opening before them, are enough to keep the most apathetic parents on
the watch-towers by day and anxious even in dreamland by night. My spare
time, if it can be said that I ever had any, was given during these days
to social festivities. The inevitable dinners, teas, picnics, and dances
with country neighbors, all came round in quick succession. We lived, at
this time, at Tenafly, New Jersey, not far from the publisher of the
_Sun_, Isaac W. England, who also had seven boys and girls as full of
frolic as our own. Mrs. England and I entered into all their games with
equal zest. The youngest thought half the fun was to see our enthusiasm
in "blindman's buff," "fox and geese," and "bean bags." It thrills me
with delight, even now, to see these games!
Mr. England was the soul of hospitality. He was never more happy than
when his house was crowded with guests, and his larder with all the
delicacies of the season. Though he and Mr. Stanton were both connected
with that dignified journal, the New York _Sun_, yet they often joined
in the general hilarity. I laugh, as I write, at the memory of all the
frolics we had on the blue hills of Jersey.
In addition to the domestic cares which a large family involved, Mrs.
Gage, Miss Anthony, and I were already busy collecting material for "The