Eighty Years and More; Reminiscences 1815-1897
great mercantile establishment, where the clerks are chiefly young
girls, who are well fed and housed, and have pleasant rooms, with a good
library, where they sit and read in the evening. We went through the
Sherborn Reformatory Prison for Women, managed entirely by women. We
found it clean and comfortable, more like a pleasant home than a place
of punishment.
Mrs. Robinson, Miss Anthony, and I were invited to dine with the Bird
Club. No woman, other than I, had ever had that honor before. I dined
with them in 1870, escorted by "Warrington" of the Springfield
_Republican_ and Edwin Morton. There I met Frank Sanborn for the first
time. Frank Bird held about the same place in political life in
Massachusetts, that Thurlow Weed did in the State of New York for forty
years. In the evening we had a crowded reception at the home of Mrs.
Fenno Tudor, who occupied a fine old residence facing the Common, where
we met a large gathering of Boston reformers. On Decoration Day, May 30,
we went to Providence, where I was the guest of Dr. William F. Channing.
We had a very successful convention there. Senator Anthony and
ex-Governor Sprague were in the audience and expressed great pleasure,
afterward, in all they had heard. I preached in Rev. Frederick
Hinckley's church the previous Sunday afternoon.
From Providence I hurried home, to meet my son Theodore and his bride,
who had just landed from France. We decorated our house and grounds with
Chinese lanterns and national flags for their reception. As we had not
time to send to New York for bunting, our flags--French and
American--were all made of bright red and blue cambric. The effect was
fine when they arrived; but, unfortunately, there came up a heavy
thunderstorm in the night and so drenched our beautiful flags that they
became colorless rags. My little maid announced to me early in the
morning that "the French and Americans had had a great battle during the
night and that the piazza was covered with blood." This was startling
news to one just awakening from a sound sleep. "Why, Emma!" I said,
"what do you mean?" "Why," she replied, "the rain has washed all the
color out of our flags, and the piazza is covered with red and blue
streams of water." As the morning sun appeared in all its glory, chasing
the dark clouds away, our decorations did indeed look pale and limp, and
were promptly removed.
I was happily surprised with my tall, stately daughter, Marguerite
Berry. A fine-looking girl of twenty, straight, strong, and sound,
modest and pleasing. She can walk miles, sketches from nature with great
skill and rapidity, and speaks three languages. I had always said to my
sons: "When you marry, choose a woman with a spine and sound teeth;
remember the teeth show the condition of the bones in the rest of the
body." So, when Theodore introduced his wife to me, he said, "You see I
have followed your advice; her spine is as straight as it should be, and
every tooth in her head as sound as ivory." This reminds me of a young
man who used to put my stoves up for the winter. He told me one day that
he thought of getting married. "Well," I said, "above all things get a
wife with a spine and sound teeth." Stove pipe in hand he turned to me
with a look of surprise, and said: "Do they ever come without spines?"
In July, 1881, sitting under the trees, Miss Anthony and I read and
discussed Wendell Phillips' magnificent speech before the Phi Beta Kappa
Society at Harvard College. This society had often talked of inviting
him, but was afraid of his radical utterances. At last, hoping that
years might have modified his opinions and somewhat softened his speech,
an invitation was given. The élite of Boston, the presidents and college
professors from far and near, were there. A great audience of the wise,
the learned, the distinguished in State and Church assembled. Such a
conservative audience, it was supposed, would surely hold this radical
in check. Alas! they were all doomed, for once, to hear the naked truth,
on every vital question of the day. Thinking this might be his only
opportunity to rouse some liberal thought in conservative minds, he
struck the keynote of every reform; defended labor strikes, the
Nihilists of Russia, prohibition, woman suffrage, and demanded
reformation in our prisons, courts of justice, and halls of legislation.
On the woman question, he said:
"Social science affirms that woman's place in society marks the
level of civilization. From its twilight in Greece, through the
Italian worship of the Virgin, the dreams of chivalry, the justice
of the civil law, and the equality of French society, we trace her
gradual recognition, while our common law, as Lord Brougham
confessed, was, with relation to women, the opprobrium of the age
of Christianity. For forty years earnest men and women, working
noiselessly, have washed away the opprobrium, the statute books of
thirty States have been remodeled, and woman stands, to-day, almost
face to face with her last claim--the ballot. It has been a weary
and thankless, though successful struggle. But if there be any
refuge from that ghastly curse, the vice of great cities, before
which social science stands palsied and dumb, it is in this more
equal recognition of women.
"If, in this critical battle for universal suffrage, our fathers'
noblest legacy to us and the greatest trust God leaves in our
hands, there be any weapon, which, once taken from the armory, will
make victory certain, it will be as it has been in art, literature,
and society, summoning woman into the political arena. The literary
class, until within half a dozen years, has taken no note of this
great uprising; only to fling every obstacle in its way.
"The first glimpse we get of Saxon blood in history is that line of
Tacitus in his 'Germany,' which reads, 'In all grave matters they
consult their women.' Years hence, when robust Saxon sense has
flung away Jewish superstition and Eastern prejudice, and put under
its foot fastidious scholarship and squeamish fashion, some second
Tacitus from the valley of the Mississippi will answer to him of
the Seven Hills: 'In all grave questions, we consult our women.'
"If the Alps, piled in cold and silence, be the emblem of
despotism, we joyfully take the ever restless ocean for ours, only
pure because never still. To be as good as our fathers, we must be
better. They silenced their fears and subdued their prejudices,
inaugurating free speech and equality with no precedent on the
file. Let us rise to their level, crush appetite, and prohibit
temptation if it rots great cities; intrench labor in sufficient
bulwarks against that wealth which, without the tenfold strength of
modern incorporations, wrecked the Grecian and Roman states; and,
with a sterner effort still, summon woman into civil life, as
re-enforcement to our laboring ranks, in the effort to make our
civilization a success. Sit not like the figure on our silver coin,
looking ever backward.
"'New occasions teach new duties,
Time makes ancient good uncouth,
They must upward still and onward,
Who would keep abreast of truth.
Lo! before us gleam her watch fires--
We ourselves must pilgrims be,
Launch our _Mayflower_, and steer boldly
Through the desperate winter sea,
Nor attempt the future's portal
With the past's blood-rusted key.'"
That Harvard speech in the face of fashion, bigotry, and
conservatism--so liberal, so eloquent, so brave--is a model for every
young man, who, like the orator, would devote his talents to the best
interests of the race, rather than to his personal ambition for mere
worldly success.
Toward the end of October, Miss Anthony returned, after a rest of two
months, and we commenced work again on the second volume of the History.
November 2 being election day, the Republican carriage, decorated with
flags and evergreens, came to the door for voters. As I owned the house
and paid the taxes, and as none of the white males was home, I suggested
that I might go down and do the voting, whereupon the gentlemen who
represented the Republican committee urged me, most cordially, to do so.
Accompanied by my faithful friend, Miss Anthony, we stepped into the
carriage and went to the poll, held in the hotel where I usually went to
pay taxes. When we entered the room it was crowded with men. I was
introduced to the inspectors by Charles Everett, one of our leading
citizens, who said: "Mrs. Stanton is here, gentlemen, for the purpose of
voting. As she is a taxpayer, of sound mind, and of legal age, I see no
reason why she should not exercise this right of citizenship."
The inspectors were thunderstruck. I think they were afraid that I was
about to capture the ballot box. One placed his arms round it, with one
hand close over the aperture where the ballots were slipped in, and
said, with mingled surprise and pity, "Oh, no, madam! Men only are
allowed to vote." I then explained to him that, in accordance with the
Constitution of New Jersey, women had voted in New Jersey down to 1801,
when they were forbidden the further exercise of the right by an
arbitrary act of the legislature, and, by a recent amendment to the
national Constitution, Congress had declared that "all persons born or
naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction
thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they
reside" and are entitled to vote. I told them that I wished to cast my
vote, as a citizen of the United States, for the candidates for United
States offices. Two of the inspectors sat down and pulled their hats
over their eyes, whether from shame or ignorance I do not know. The
other held on to the box, and said "I know nothing about the
Constitutions, State or national. I never read either; but I do know
that in New Jersey, women have not voted in my day, and I cannot accept
your ballot." So I laid my ballot in his hand, saying that I had the
same right to vote that any man present had, and on him must rest the
responsibility of denying me my rights of citizenship.
All through the winter Miss Anthony and I worked diligently on the
History. My daughter Harriot came from Europe in February, determined
that I should return with her, as she had not finished her studies. To
expedite my task on the History she seized the laboring oar, prepared
the last chapter and corrected the proof as opportunity offered. As the
children were scattered to the four points of the compass and my husband
spent the winter in the city, we decided to lease our house and all take
a holiday. We spent a month in New York city, busy on the History to the
last hour, with occasional intervals of receiving and visiting friends.
As I dreaded the voyage, the days flew by too fast for my pleasure.
CHAPTER XXI.
IN THE SOUTH OF FRANCE.
Having worked diligently through nearly two years on the second volume
of "The History of Woman Suffrage," I looked forward with pleasure to a
rest, in the Old World, beyond the reach and sound of my beloved Susan
and the woman suffrage movement. On May 27, 1892, I sailed with my
daughter Harriot on the _Château Léoville_ for Bordeaux. The many
friends who came to see us off brought fruits and flowers, boxes of
candied ginger to ward off seasickness, letters of introduction, and
light literature for the voyage. We had all the daily and weekly papers,
secular and religious, the new monthly magazines, and several novels. We
thought we would do an immense amount of reading, but we did very
little. Eating, sleeping, walking on deck, and watching the