THE status of woman in
the United States fifty years ago, the progressive steps by which it has been
improved, present conditions, future probabilities--in fact, a resume of the
great movement in which Elizabeth Cady Stanton has been the central figure
through two generations--this is the subject assigned me to consider in the
brief space of one magazine article!
The title I claim for
Mrs. Stanton is that of leader of women. Women do not enjoy one privilege to-day
beyond those possessed by their foremothers, which was not demanded by her
before the present generation was born. Her published speeches will verify this
statement. In the light of the present, it seems natural that she should have
made those first demands for women; but at the time it was done the act was far
more revolutionary than was the Declaration of Independence by the colonial
leaders. There had been other rebellions against the rule of kings and nobles;
men from time immemorial had been accustomed to protest against injustice; but
for women to take such action was without a precedent and the most daring
innovation in all history. Men of old could emphasize their demands by the
sword, and in the present century they have been able to do so by the ballot.
While they might, indeed, put their lives in peril, they were always supported
by a certain amount of sympathy from the public. Women could neither fight nor
vote; they were not sustained even by those of their own sex; and, while they
incurred no physical risk, they imperilled their reputation and subjected
themselves to mental and spiritual crucifixion. Therefore I hold that the
calling of that first Women's Rights Convention in 1848 by Mrs. Stanton,
Lucretia Mott and two or three other brave Quaker women, was one of the most
courageous acts on record.
It must be remembered
that at this time a woman's convention never had been heard of, with the
exception of the few which had been called, early in the anti-slavery movement,
by the women who had been driven out of the men's meetings and had formed their
own society; but even these were almost wholly managed by men. A few individual
women had publicly advocated equality of rights--the number could be more than
counted on one's fingers--but a convention for this purpose and an organized
demand had been till then undreamed of. The vigor and scope of the Declaration
of Sentiments which was presented and adopted at this memorable meeting, held
at Mrs. Stanton's home, in Seneca Falls, New York, are in nowise diminished by
comparison with the Declaration of the forefathers proclaimed exactly
seventy-two years before. It began, indeed, with the preamble of the
Declaration of Independence, substituting "women" for "men"
and "colonies"; and it continued:
"The history of
mankind is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations on the part of man
toward woman, having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny
over her. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world:
"He has never permitted
her to exercise her inalienable right to the elective franchise.
"He has compelled
her to submit to laws in the formation of which she had no voice.
"He has withheld
from her rights which are given to the most ignorant and degraded men--both natives
and foreigners.
"Having deprived
her of this first right of a citizen, the elective franchise, thereby leaving
her without representation in the halls of legislation, he has oppressed her on
all sides.
"He has made her,
if married, in the eye of the law, civilly dead.
"He has taken from
her all right in property, even to the wages she earns.
"He has made her
morally an irresponsible being, as she can commit many crimes with impunity,
provided they be done in the presence of her husband. In the covenant of
marriage, she is compelled to promise obedience to her husband, he becoming, to
all intents and purposes, her master--the law giving him power to deprive her
of her liberty and to administer chastisement.
"He has so framed
the laws of divorce, as to what shall be the proper causes, and to whom the
guardianship of the children shall be given, as to be wholly regardless of the
happiness of woman--the law, in all cases, going upon a false supposition of
the supremacy of man, and giving all power into his hands.
"After depriving
her of all rights as a married woman, if single and the owner of property, he
has taxed her to support a government which recognizes her only when her
property can be made profitable to it.
"He has
monopolized nearly all the profitable employments, and from those she is
permitted to follow, she receives but a scanty remuneration.
"He has closed
against her all the avenues to wealth and distinction which he considers most
honorable to himself. In theology, medicine, and law she is not known.
"He has denied her
the facilities for obtaining a thorough education--all colleges being closed
against her.
"He allows her in
Church, as well as State, but a subordinate position, claiming Apostolic
authority for her exclusion from the ministry, and, with some exceptions, from
any public participation in the affairs of the Church.
"He has created a
false public sentiment by giving to the world a different code of morals for
men and women, by which moral delinquencies which exclude women from society
are not only tolerated but deemed of little account in man.
"He has usurped
the prerogative of Jehovah himself, claiming it as his right to assign for her
a sphere of action, when that belongs to her conscience and to her God.
"He has
endeavored, in every way that he could to destroy her confidence in her own
powers, to lessen her self-respect and to make her willing to lead a dependent
and abject life.
"Now, in view of
this entire disfranchisement of one-half the people of this country, their
social and religious degradation--in view of the unjust laws above mentioned,
and because women do feel themselves aggrieved, oppressed and fraudulently deprived
of their most sacred rights, we insist that they have immediate admission to
all the rights and privileges which belong to them as citizens of the United
States.
"In entering upon
the great work before us we anticipate no small amount of misconception, misrepresentation
and ridicule; but we shall use every instrumentality within our power to effect
our object. We shall employ agents, circulate tracts, petition the State and
national Legislatures, and endeavor to enlist the pulpit and the press in our
behalf. We hope this Convention will be followed by a series of Conventions,
embracing every part of the country."
"Firmly relying
upon the final triumph of the Right and the True, we do this day affix our
signatures to this Declaration."
To emphasize these most
radical sentiments the following resolutions also were adopted:
"The great precept
of nature is conceded to be, 'that man shall pursue his own true and
substantial happiness.' Blackstone, in his Commentaries, remarks, that this law
of Nature being coeval with mankind and dictated by God himself, is of course
superior in obligation to any other. It is binding over all the globe, in all
countries, and at all times; no human laws are of any validity if contrary to
this, and such of them as are valid derive all their force and all their
validity and all their authority, mediately and immediately, from this
original; therefore,
"Resolved, That
such laws as conflict, in any way, with the true and substantial happiness of
woman, are contrary to the great precept of nature and of no validity; for this
is 'superior in obligation to any other.'
"Resolved, That
all laws which prevent woman from occupying such a station in society as her
conscience shall dictate, or which place her in a position inferior to that of
man, are contrary to the great precept of nature and therefore of no force or
authority.
"Resolved, That
woman is man's equal--was intended to be so by the Creator--and the highest
good of the race demands that she should be recognized as such.
"Resolved, That
the women of this country ought to be enlightened in regard to the laws under
which they live, that they may no longer publish their degradation by declaring
themselves satisfied with their present position, nor their ignorance by
asserting that they have all the rights they want.
"Resolved, That
inasmuch as man, while claiming for himself intellectual superiority, does
accord to woman moral superiority, it is preeminently his duty to encourage her
to speak and teach, as she has an opportunity, in all religious assemblies.
"Resolved, That
the same amount of virtue, delicacy and refinement of behavior that is required
of woman in the social state should also be required of man, and the same
transgressions should be visited with equal severity on both man and woman.
"Resolved, That
the objection of indelicacy and impropriety, which is so often brought against
woman when she addresses a public audience, comes with a very ill-grace from
those who encourage by their attendance her appearance on the stage, in the
concert or in feats of the circus.
"Resolved, That
woman has too long rested satisfied in the circumscribed limits which corrupt
customs and a perverted application of the Scriptures have marked out for her,
and that it is time she should move in the enlarged sphere which her great
Creator has assigned her.
Resolved, That it is
the duty of the women of this country to secure to themselves their sacred
right to the elective franchise.
"Resolved, That
the equality of human rights results necessarily from the fact of the identity
of the race in capabilities and responsibilities.
"Resolved,
therefore, That, being invested by the Creator with the same capabilities and
the same consciousness of responsibility for their exercise, it is demonstrably
the right and duty of woman, equally with man, to promote every righteous cause
by every righteous means; and especially in regard to the great subjects of
morals and religion, it is self-evidently her right to participate with her
brother in teaching them, both in private and in public, by writing and by
speaking, by any instrumentalities proper to be used and in any assemblies
proper to be held; and this being a self-evident truth, growing out of the
divinely implanted principles of human nature, any custom or authority adverse
to it, whether modern or wearing the hoary sanction of antiquity, is to be
regarded as a self-evident falsehood and at war with the interests of
mankind."
In all the conventions
which have been held during the past fifty-four years, the impassioned
addresses made, the resolutions presented, the hearings before legislative
bodies, there has been nothing to add to these declarations made by a woman
only thirty- three years old, born and bred in the midst of the most rigid social,
civil and religious conservatism. They illustrate vividly the conditions which
existed in that day, when the simplest rudiments of education were deemed
sufficient for women; when only a half-dozen remunerative employments were open
to them and any work outside the home placed a stigma on the worker; when a
woman's right to speak in public was more bitterly contested than her right to
the suffrage is to-day. The storm of ridicule and denunciation which broke over
the heads of the women who took part in this convention never has been exceeded
in the coarsest and most vituperative political campaign ever conducted. The
attacks were led by the pulpit, whose influence fifty years ago was far greater
than at present and whose power over women was supreme. The press of the
country did not suffer itself to be outdone; but, taking its cue from the
metropolitan papers of New York, contributed its full quota of caricature and
misrepresentation.
At the beginning of
1848, the English Common Law was in force practically everywhere in the United
States. Its treatment of women was a blot on civilization only equalled in
blackness by the slavery of the negro. The latter, technically at least, has
now disappeared. The former dies slowly, because it cannot be eradicated by
fire and sword. Lord Coke called this Common Law "the perfection of
reason." Under its provisions the position of the wife was thus stated by
Blackstone:
"The very being or
existence of the woman is suspended during the marriage, or at least is incorporated
and consolidated into that of the husband, under whose wing, protection and
covert she performs everything. She is, therefore, called in our Law-French a
femme-covert, is said to be covert-baron, or under the protection and influence
of her husband, her baron or lord.
"The husband also,
by the old law, might give his wife moderate correction. For, as he is to
answer for her misbehavior, the law thought it reasonable to intrust him with
this power of restraining her by domestic chastisement in the same moderation
that a man is allowed to correct his apprentices or children. But this power of
correction was confined within reasonable bounds, and the husband was
prohibited from using any violence to his wife, except as lawfully and
reasonably belongs to a husband for the sake of governing and disciplining his
wife. The Civil Law gave the husband the same or a larger authority over his
wife, allowing him for some misdemeanors to beat his wife severely with whips
and cudgels; for others only to administer moderate chastisement."1
Other provisions of
this law were as follows:
"By marriage, the
husband and wife are one person in law; that is, the legal existence of the
woman is merged in that of her husband. He is her baron or lord, bound to
supply her with shelter, food, clothing and medicine, and is entitled to her
earnings and the use and custody of her person, which he may seize wherever he
may find it."2
"The husband,
being bound to provide for his wife the necessaries of life, and being
responsible for her morals and the good order of the household, may choose and
govern the domicile, select her associates, separate her from her relatives,
restrain her religious and personal freedom, compel her to cohabit with him,
correct her faults by mild means, and, if necessary, chastise her with
moderation, as though she was his apprentice or child. This is in respect to
the terms of the marriage contract and the infirmity of the sex."3
It does not seem
necessary to add further particulars as to the condition of women in the middle
of the century just closed and at the time Elizabeth Cady Stanton began the
almost superhuman task of setting them free from the bondage of centuries. The
first cleft in the infamy of the Common Law was made almost simultaneously by
the Legislatures of New York, and Pennsylvania, in the spring of 1848, by
special statutes giving a married woman the right to hold property. This was
the first glimmer of freedom from legal slavery which ever had appeared to
women; and it is not surprising that it scarcely penetrated the darkness in
which they had been enveloped for untold ages, or that they rejected with scorn
those who came to deliver them.
The beginning of my
friendship and work with Mrs. Stanton dates from the summer of 1851. I was at
that time thirty-one years old and had been teaching since I was eighteen. My
father was deeply interested in the anti-slavery cause; and Garrison, Phillips,
Pillsbury, Channing, Frederick Douglass and other noted reformers were often
guests in our home. The school-room had grown insupportably narrow. I had no
personal grievances, as my own family, in common with all the Friends, or
Quakers, recognized the equality of woman in all the relations of life; but I
was stirred by the terrible injustice which I saw meted out to women on every
hand, and I realized the especial need of their voice and influence in the two
great causes of temperance and anti- slavery. The necessity for the ballot had
not appealed to me, as, in those days, Quaker men were not in the habit of
voting. But in October, 1850, my consciousness was awakened by reading in the
New York Tribune a full and favorable account of a Woman's Rights Convention
held in Worcester, Massachusetts. The next year I became acquainted with Mrs.
Stanton, and she soon fired my soul with all her own zeal for the right of the
suffrage. Among my old papers is the following appeal, which, as Secretary of
the New York State Temperance Society, I sent out in the spring of 1852,
accompanying petitions for what was then known as the Maine Law:
"Women, and
mothers in particular, should feel it their right and duty to extend their
influence beyond the circumference of the home circle, and to say what
circumstances shall surround children when they go forth from under the
watchful guardianship of the mother's love; for certain it is that if the
customs and laws of society remain corrupt as they now are, the best and wisest
of the mother's teachings will soon be counteracted. . . . Woman has so long
been accustomed to non-intervention with law making, so long considered it
man's business to regulate the liquor traffic, that it is with much
cautiousness she receives the new doctrine which we preach--the doctrine that
it is her right and duty to speak out against the traffic and all men and
institutions that in any way sanction, sustain or countenance it; and, since
she can not vote, to duly instruct her husband, son, father or brother how she
would have him vote, and, if he longer continue to misrepresent her, take the
right to march to the ballot-box and deposit a vote indicative of her highest
ideas of practical temperance."
This was my first
declaration for woman suffrage, which I have since repeated in season and out
of season at every possible opportunity for fifty years. In a short time the
conviction became so dominant that the franchise was the lever with which women
could lift all other reform movements, that I abandoned everything else and
devoted the whole force of my being to securing this fundamental power for women.
The only departure from this rule was made during the Civil War, when every
issue but one was held in abeyance. Mrs. Stanton and I sent out a call for a
mass meeting in Dr. Cheever's church, New York, where the Woman's Loyal League
was formed, on May 14th, 1863. Nearly 400,000 signatures to petitions for
emancipation were secured, and Charles Sumner and Henry Wilson wrote us
repeatedly that these petitions formed the bulwark of their demand for
Congressional action to abolish slavery.
The moment the war was
over--in 1865, when the Fourteenth Amendment was under discussion and it was
proposed to introduce the word "male" in the National Constitution
for the first time--I resumed my efforts for woman suffrage and have never
deviated from the straight and narrow path which leads to this goal. During
late years Mrs. Stanton has held that, as the suffrage movement is steadily
going forward by its own momentum, women should take up other public questions
which so evidently need the combined wisdom of men and women in their solution.
I have maintained my original attitude, believing that for the leaders of the
work for woman suffrage to identify themselves with the other issues of the day
is to create animosities and alienate supporters of a cause which can achieve
victory only through the assistance of all religious bodies and political
parties. I have sympathized thoroughly, however, with Mrs. Stanton's
rebelliousness against that condition of dependence which compels women to
remain mute and inactive in the great movements of the time, as the only means
of achieving freedom to speak and act effectively in the future.
To follow in detail the
steps by which women have reached their present position of comparative social,
educational, financial and legal independence, would be to write a chapter for
each of the fifty years which have intervened since the first few brave souls
dared lift up their voices in a cry for liberty. The organized movement for the
emancipation of women began in earnest soon after the close of the Civil War.
Every one of the past thirty-five years has witnessed the breaking of a link in
the chain. The going forth of hundreds of thousands of men from the farm, the
work-shop, the factory, the store--from every field of employment--to swell the
ranks of the army, made it absolutely necessary for women to step into their
places in order that the countless wheels of the world's work should not stop.
The vacancies left by those who never returned, and the rapidly-growing
tendency to remove domestic products from the home to the factory, practically
set- tled the question of woman's entering the wage-earning occupations.
The period immediately
after the War was marked by the speedy increase and enlargement of State
Universities and the admission of women. Their example was followed by many of
the other colleges and universities of the country, and in 1890 by the founding
of the two great endowed institutions, Stanford and Chicago, with the admission
of women to every department. Although the latter has just made the egregious
blunder of modifying its original plan, this action represents only the
individual scheme of one man and not a reactionary tendency. The question of
the higher education of woman may be regarded as decided in her favor.
The right of women to
organize for public work is now universally recognized and approved. They have
at present in the United States over one hundred national organizations, with
thousands of local clubs and societies comprising millions of members, and
their influence over the general conditions of the various communities is
beyond computation. The right of women to speak in public is not only
everywhere conceded but, given a man and a woman with equal abilities, the
average audience would prefer to hear the latter.
The legal features of
the revolution have been quite as marked as its other phases. An examination,
doubtless, would show that in not one State does the Common Law now prevail in
its entirety. In many of them it has been largely obliterated by special
statutes. There has been no retrogressive legislation with respect to the
status of women before the law. In the majority of the States, a married woman
may now own and control property, carry on business and possess her earnings,
make a will and a contract, bring suit in her own name, act as administrator
and testify in the courts. In one-fifth of the States, she has equal guardianship
with the father over the minor children. Where formerly there was but one cause
for divorce, the wife may now obtain a divorce in almost every State for
habitual drunkenness, cruelty, failure to provide and desertion on the part of
the husband; and he can no longer, as of old even though the guilty party,
retain sole possession of the children and the property. The general tendency
of legislation for women is progressive, and there is not a doubt that this
will continue to be the case.
I do not wish to be
understood for a moment, however, as maintaining that woman stands on a perfect
equality with man in any of the above-mentioned departments--in the industries,
education, organization, public speaking or the laws. She simply has made
immense gains in all, and her standing has been completely revolutionized since
Mrs. Stanton announced the beginning of a new Reformation. Woman never will
have equality of rights anywhere, she never will hold those she now has by an
absolute tenure, until she possesses the fundamental right of
self-representation. This fact is so obvious as to need no argument. Had this
right been conceded at the start, the others would have speedily followed; and
the leaders among women, instead of spending the last half-century in a
constant struggle to obtain their civil and political rights, might have
contributed their splendid services to the general upbuilding and strengthening
of the Government. The effort for this most important of rights has had to
content not only, like the rest, with the obstinate prejudices and customs of
the ages, but also with the still more stubborn condition of its hard and fast
intrenchment in constitutional law. It is not merely a board of trustees or a
body of legislators who must be converted to the justice of extending this
right to women, but also the great masses of men, including the ignorant, the
foreign-born, the small-minded and the vicious. A majority of the men in every
State must give their consent at the ballot box for women to come into possession
of this paramount right. Such has not been the case with any other step in the
progress of women.
It is not necessary to
consider the minor reasons why the enfranchisement of women has been so long
deferred; but, in spite of the almost insuperable obstacles, there has been
considerable progress in this direction. In some States, the Legislatures
themselves can confer a fragmentary suffrage without the ratification of the
voters. This has been done in about half of them, Kansas granting the municipal
franchise, Louisiana, Montana and New York a taxpayer's franchise, and
twenty-two States a vote on matters connected with the public schools. Within
the last twelve years, four States have conferred the full suffrage on
women--Wyoming and Utah by placing it in the constitutions under which they
entered Statehood; Colorado and Idaho through a submission of the question to
the voters. There is a strong basis for believing that within a few years
several other States will take similar action.
The effect upon women
themselves of these enlarged opportunities in every direction has been a
development which is almost a regeneration. The capability they have shown in
the realm of higher education, their achievements in the business world, their
capacity for organization, their executive power, have been a revelation. To
set women back into the limited sphere of fifty years ago would be to arrest
the progress of the whole race. Their evolution has been accompanied by a
corresponding development in the moral nature of man, his ideas of temperance
and chastity, his sense of justice, his relations to society. In no department
of the world's activities are the higher qualities so painfully lacking as in
politics, and this is the only one from which women are wholly excluded. Is it
not perfectly logical to assume that their influence would be as beneficial
here as it has been everywhere else? Does not logic also justify the opinion
that, as they have been admitted into every other channel, the political
gateways must inevitably be opened?
There cannot be a doubt
in the reasoning and unbiased mind that woman suffrage ultimately will prevail
in every State in the Union. It will be the legitimate outcome of the spirit of
our institutions, which is the direct expression of individual opinion. A deep
feeling of regret always will prevail that the Liberator of woman, Elizabeth
Cady Stanton, could not live to see the complete triumph of her cause, as did
those other great emancipators, Lincoln, Garrison and Phillips; but she died in
the full knowledge that the day of its victory is clearly marked on the
calendar of the near future.
SUSAN B. ANTHONY. Blackstone's
Commentaries, I., 356, 366. Id., 444. Id., 442.