The History of Woman Suffrage
Chapter 91 : _Resolved_, That we demand a full recognition of our equal rights, civil and political-

_Resolved_, That we demand a full recognition of our equal rights, civil and political--no special legislation can satisfy us--the enjoyment of a right to-day is no security that it will be continued to-morrow, so long as it is granted to us by a privileged cla.s.s, and not secured to us as a sacred right.

WHEREAS, the essence of republican liberty is the principle that no cla.s.s shall depend for its rights on the mercy or justice of any other cla.s.s, therefore,

_Resolved_, That woman demands her right to the jury-box and the ballot, that she may have, as man has, the means of her own protection in her own hands.

_Resolved_, That woman, in consenting to remain in any organization or church where she has no voice in the choice of officers, trustees, or pastor--no right of protest against false doctrines or action--is wanting in a proper self-respect, in that dignity which, as a philanthropist and a Christian, she should ever manifest.

_Resolved_, That we from this platform instruct our legal representatives to make no more appropriations to colleges for boys exclusively. Now that we are large property holders and tax-payers, we protest against the injustice of being compelled to build and endow colleges into which we are forbidden to enter.

_Resolved_, That we advise women to apply to the trustees and heads of public libraries, galleries of art, and similar inst.i.tutions, for employment as clerks and attendants, thus securing to themselves, when admitted, a more liberal means of support, and furnis.h.i.+ng a stepping-stone to other occupations.

_Resolved_, That we return thanks to the Legislature of New York for its acts of justice to woman during the last session. But the work is not yet done. We still claim the ballot, the right of trial by a jury of our own peers, the control and custody of our persons in marriage, and an equal right to the joint earnings of the co-partners.h.i.+p. The geographical position and political power of New York make her example supreme; hence we feel a.s.sured that when she is right on this question, our work is done.

[168] 1. _Resolved_, That, in the language (slightly varied) of John Milton, "Those who marry intend as little to conspire their own ruin, as those who swear allegiance, and as a whole people is to an ill government, so is one man or woman to an ill marriage. If a whole people, against any authority, covenant, or statute, may, by the sovereign edict of charity, save not only their lives, but honest liberties, from unworthy bondage, as well may a married party, against any private covenant, which he or she never entered, to his or her mischief, be redeemed from unsupportable disturbances, to honest peace and just contentment."

2. _Resolved_, That all men are created equal, and all women, in their natural rights, are the equals of men, and endowed by their Creator with the same inalienable right to the pursuit of happiness.

3. _Resolved_, That any const.i.tution, compact, or covenant between human beings, that failed to produce or promote human happiness, could not, in the nature of things, be of any force or authority; and it would be not only a right, but a duty, to abolish it.

4. _Resolved_, That though marriage be in itself divinely founded, and is fortified as an inst.i.tution by innumerable a.n.a.logies in the whole kingdom of universal nature, still, a true marriage is only known by its results; and, like the fountain, if pure, will reveal only pure manifestations. Nor need it ever be said, "What G.o.d hath joined together, let no man put asunder," for man could not put it asunder; nor can he any more unite what G.o.d and nature have not joined together.

5. _Resolved_, That of all insulting mockeries of heavenly truth and holy law, none can be greater than that physical impotency is cause sufficient for divorce, while no amount of mental or moral or spiritual imbecility is ever to be pleaded in support of such a demand.

6. _Resolved_, That such a law was worthy those dark periods when marriage was held by the greatest doctors and priests of the Church to be a work of the flesh only, and almost, if not altogether, a defilement; denied wholly to the clergy, and a second time, forbidden to all.

7. _Resolved_, That an unfortunate or ill-a.s.sorted marriage is ever a calamity, but not ever, perhaps never, a crime--and when society or government, by its laws or customs, compels its continuance, always to the grief of one of the parties, and the actual loss and damage of both, it usurps an authority never delegated to man, nor exercised by G.o.d himself.

8. _Resolved_, That observation and experience daily show how incompetent are men, as individuals, or as governments, to select partners in business, teachers for their children, ministers of their religion, or makers, adjudicators, or administrators of their laws; and as the same weakness and blindness must attend in the selection of matrimonial partners, the dictates of humanity and common sense alike show that the latter and most important contract should no more be perpetual than either or all of the former.

9. _Resolved_, That children born in these unhappy and unhallowed connections are, in the most solemn sense, of unlawful birth--the fruit of l.u.s.t, but not of love--and so not of G.o.d, divinely descended, but from beneath, whence proceed all manner of evil and uncleanliness.

10. _Resolved_, That next to the calamity of such a birth to the child, is the misfortune of being trained in the atmosphere of a household where love is not the law, but where discord and bitterness abound; stamping their demoniac features on the moral nature, with all their odious peculiarities--thus continuing the race in a weakness and depravity that must be a sure precursor of its ruin, as a just penalty of long-violated law.

[169] Thurlow Weed, editor of _The Albany Evening Journal_, opposed the pa.s.sage of the Divorce Bill before the New York Legislature in 1860.

[170] _Resolved_, That marriage is the voluntary alliance of two persons of opposite s.e.xes into one family, and that such an alliance, with its possible incidents of children, its common interests, etc., must be, from the nature of things, as permanent as the life of the parties.

_Resolved_, That if human law attempts to regulate marriage at all, it should aim to regulate it according to the fundamental principles of marriage; and that as the inst.i.tution is inherently as continuous as the life of the parties, so all laws should look to its control and preservation as such.

_Resolved_, That as a parent can never annul his obligations towards even a profligate child, because of the inseparable relations.h.i.+p of the parties, so the married partner can not annul his obligations towards the other, while both live, no matter how profligate that other's conduct may be, because of their still closer and alike permanent relations.h.i.+p; and, therefore, that all divorce is naturally and morally impossible, even though we should succeed in annulling all legalities.

_Resolved_, That gross fraud and want of good faith in one of the parties contracting this alliance, such as would invalidate any other voluntary relation, are the only causes which can invalidate this, and this, too, solely upon the ground that the relation never virtually existed, and that there are, therefore, no resulting moral obligations.

_Resolved_, however, That both men and women have a first and inviolable right to themselves, physically, mentally, and morally, and that it can never be the duty of either to surrender his personal freedom in any direction to his own hurt.

_Resolved_, That the great duty of every human being is to secure his own highest moral development, and that he can not owe to society, or to an individual, any obligation which shall be degrading to himself.

_Resolved_, That self-devotion to the good of another, and especially to the good of the sinful and guilty, like all disinterestedness, must redound to the highest good of its author, and that the husband or wife who thus seeks the best interests of the other, is obedient to the highest law of benevolence.

_Resolved_, That this is a very different thing from the culpable weakness which allows itself to be immolated by the selfishness of another, to the hurt of both; and that the miserable practice, now so common among wives, of allowing themselves, their children and family interests, to be sacrificed to a degraded husband and father, is most reprehensible.

_Resolved_, That human law is imperatively obligated to give either party ample protection to himself, to their offspring, and to all other family interests, against wrong, injustice, and usurpation on the part of the other, and that, if it be necessary to this, it should grant a legal separation; and yet, that even such separation can not invalidate any real marriage obligation.

_Resolved_, That every married person is imperatively obligated to do his utmost thus to protect himself and all family interests against injustice and wrong, let it arise from what source it may.

_Resolved_, That every woman is morally obligated to maintain her equality in human rights in all her relations in life, and that if she consents to her own subjugation, either in the family, Church or State, she is as guilty as the slave is in consenting to be a slave.

_Resolved_, That a perfect union can not be expected to exist until we first have perfect units, and that every marriage of finite beings must be gradually perfected through the growth and a.s.similation of the parties.

_Resolved_, That the permanence and indissolubility of marriage tend more directly than anything else toward this result.

[171] Francis Jackson. This fund was drawn upon by several of the States. $1,993.66 was expended in the campaigns in New York, the publication of 60,000 tracts, and the appropriation of several hundred to a series of sermons by the Rev. Antoinette Brown Blackwell, delivered in Hope Chapel, New York; $1,000 was expended in the Ohio canva.s.s of 1860, and tracts in large numbers were also sent there.

Both money and tracts were contributed to the Kansas campaign of 1859.

Lucy Stone had $1,500 to expend in Kansas in 1867, and thus in various ways the fund was finally expended, Lucy Stone drawing out the last $1,000 in 1871. So careful had been the management of this fund, that the acc.u.mulation of the interest had greatly increased the original sum.

[172] Lydia Mott was one of the quiet workers who kept all things pertaining to the woman's rights reform in motion at the capital.

Living in Albany, she planned conventions and hearings before the Legislature. She knew a large number of the members and men of influence, who all felt a profound respect for that dignified, judicious Quaker woman. Her home was not only one of the depots of the underground railroad, where slaves escaping to Canada were warmed and fed, but it was the hospitable resort for all reformers. Everything about the house was clean and orderly, and the table always bountiful, and the food appetizing. As such men as Seward and Marcy, leaders from opposite political parties, Gerrit Smith, Garrison, Phillips, Pillsbury, Remond, Foster, Dougla.s.s, representing all the reforms, met in turn at Miss Mott's dinner-table, she had the advantage of hearing popular questions discussed from every standpoint. And Miss Mott was not merely hostess at her table, but on all occasions took a leading part in the conversation. All of us who enjoyed her friends.h.i.+p and hospitality deeply feel her loss in that conservative city.

[173] [Introduced, on notice, by Mr. Ramsey; read twice, and referred to the Committee on the Judiciary; reported from said Committee for the consideration of the Senate, and committed to the Committee of the Whole].

AN ACT IN REGARD TO DIVORCES DISSOLVING THE MARRIAGE CONTRACT.

_The People of the State of New York, represented in Senate and a.s.sembly, do enact as follows:_

SECTION 1. In addition to the cases in which a divorce, dissolving the marriage contract, may now be decreed by the Supreme Court, such a divorce may be decreed by said court in either of the cases following:

1. Where either party to the marriage shall, for the period of three years next preceding the application for such divorce, have willfully deserted the other party to the marriage, and neglected to perform to such party the duties imposed by their relation.

2. Where there is and shall have been for the period of one year next preceding the application for such divorce, continuous and repeated instances of cruel and inhuman treatment by either party, so as greatly to impair the health or endanger the life of the other party, thereby rendering it unsafe to live with the party guilty of such cruelty or inhumanity.

--2. The foregoing sections shall not apply to any person who shall not have been an actual resident of this State for the period of five years next preceding such application for such divorce.

--3. Specifications one, two, and three of original section thirty-eight, of article three, of t.i.tle one, of chapter eight, of part two of the Revised Statutes, shall apply to these causes for divorce as they now apply to the cause of adultery.

--4. The other provisions of the Revised Statutes relating to the granting of divorces for adultery, and regulating the form and manner of proceedings and decrees, and the effects thereof, and the restrictions and defences to the application thereof, shall be applicable to the granting of divorces for causes hereinabove specified, and all proceedings therefor and therein, so far and in such manner as the same may be capable of such application.

--5. This act shall take effect immediately.

[174] Published at the close of Mr. Greeley's "Recollections of a Busy Life."

[175] Pa.s.sed April 10, 1862.

SECT. 3. Any married woman, possessed of real estate as her separate property, may bargain, sell, and convey such property, and enter into any contract in reference to the same, with the like effect in all respects as if she were unmarried; and she may in like manner enter into such covenant or covenants for t.i.tle as are usual in conveyances of real estate, which covenants shall be obligatory to bind her separate property, in case the same or any of them be broken.

--2. The fourth, fifth, sixth, ninth, tenth, and eleventh sections of the said Act are hereby repealed.

7th. Any married woman may, while married, sue and be sued, in all matters having relation to her sole and separate property, or which may hereafter come to her by descent, devise, bequest, purchase, or the gift or grant of any person, in the same manner as if she were sole; and any married woman may bring and maintain an action in her own name, for damages, against any person or body corporate, for any injury to her person or character, the same as if she were sole; and the money received upon the settlement of any such action, or recovered upon a judgment, shall be her sole and separate property. In case it shall be necessary in the prosecution or defense of any action brought by or against a married woman, to enter into any bond or undertaking, such bond or undertaking may be executed by such married woman, with the same effect in all respects as if she were sole; and in case the said bond or undertaking shall become broken or forfeited, the same may be enforced against her separate estate.

8th. No bargain or contract made by any married woman, in respect to her sole and separate property, or any property which may hereafter come to her by descent, devise, bequest, purchase, or the gift or grant of any person (except her husband), and no bargain or contract entered into by any married woman, in or about the carrying on of any trade or business, under any statute of this State, shall be binding upon her husband, or render him or his property in any way liable therefor.