History of Woman Suffrage
Chapter 188 : Mr. HAGER: Mr. President, it seems to me strange that a question of so much importance

Mr. HAGER: Mr. President, it seems to me strange that a question of so much importance as that raised by this amendment appears to be, from the positions taken by Senators on the floor, should be presented upon this bill, which, if amended as proposed, will not confer the right of suffrage upon females throughout the country; and for us to undertake to legislate upon this question in regard to a distant Territory where perhaps there are few or no women, unless they be of the Indian race, is to me a very astonis.h.i.+ng thing.... If suffrage should be extended to females let it come up as a distinct, independent proposition by itself, and then every Senator can take his position in regard to a question which affects the whole country, and not a distant Territory merely.

That is the way, in my opinion, to get at it.... Inasmuch as in the wisdom of the Government and people of the United States the right to the elective franchise has been conferred upon the black race in this country, I see no reason on the ground of qualification why it should not be conferred upon females.... But I am unwilling to legislate by piecemeal in this manner. If there is any good in it; if, as the Senator from Indiana says, as a matter of right women should be ent.i.tled to the franchise, that right should be co-extensive with the whole country, and not be limited to the little Territory of Pembina, which is not yet organized.

Mr. EDMUNDS.--I renew the motion to lay the bill on the table.

Mr. SARGENT.--On that motion I ask for the yeas and nays. The yeas and nays were ordered.

Mr. RAMSEY.--I should like to appeal to the Senator from Vermont to withdraw the motion for five minutes.

Mr. STEWART.--We will not lay it on the table.

Mr. RAMSEY.--Very well; let the vote be taken. The question being taken by yeas and nays, resulted--yeas, 24; nays, 24; as follows:

YEAS--Messrs. Bayard, Buckingham, Conkling, Conover, Cooper, Davis, Edmunds, Frelinghuysen, Hager, Hamilton of Maryland, Howe, Ingalls, Johnston, Jones, MeCreery, Merrimon, Morrill of Maine, Norwood, Ransom, Scott, Sherman, Wadleigh, Washburn, and Wright--24.

NAYS--Messrs. Bogy, Boreman, Boutwell, Carpenter, Chandler, Clayton, Ferry of Michigan, Flanagan, Gilbert, Harvey, Hitchc.o.c.k, Logan, Mitch.e.l.l, Morton, Patterson, Pratt, Ramsey, Sargent, Spencer, Sprague, Stewart, Tipton, West, and Windom--24.

ABSENT--Messrs. Alcorn, Allison, Anthony, Brownlow, Cameron, Cragin, Dennis, Dorsey, Fenton, Ferry of Connecticut, Goldthwaite, Gordon, Hamilton of Texas, Hamlin, Kelly, Lewis, Morrill of Vermont, Oglesby, Pease, Robertson, Saulsbury, Schurz, Stevenson, Stockton, and Thurman--25.

So the motion was not agreed to.

The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. CLAYTON in the chair.)--The question is on the amendment of the Senator from California [Mr.

SARGENT], upon which the yeas and nays have been ordered.

Mr. BAYARD.--Mr. President, it would seem scarcely credible that in the Senate of the United States an abrupt and sudden change in so fundamental a relation as that borne by the two s.e.xes to our system of Government should be proposed as an "experiment," and that it should be gravely recommended that a newly organized Territory under act of Congress should be set aside for this "experiment," which is in direct, grossly irreverent disregard of all that we have known as a rule, our great fundamental rule, in organizing a government of laws, whether colonial, State, or Federal, in this country.

I frankly say, Mr. President, that which strikes me most forcibly is the gross irreverence of this proposition, its utter disregard of that Divine will by which man and woman were created different, physically, intellectually, and morally, and in defiance of which we are now to have this poor, weak, futile attempt of man to set up his schemes of amelioration in defiance of every tradition, of every revelation, of all human experience, enlightened as it has been by Divine permission. It seems to me that to introduce so grave a subject as this, to spring it here upon the Senate without notice in the shape of an amendment to a pending measure, to propose thus to experiment with the great laws that lie at the very foundation of human society, and to do it for the most part in the trivial tone which we have witnessed during this debate, is not only mortifying, but it renders one almost hopeless of the permanence of our Government if this is to be the example set by one of the Houses of Congress, that which claims to be more sedate and deliberate, if it proposes in this light and perfunctory way to deal with questions of this grave nature and import. Sir, there is no time at present for that preparation which such a subject demands at the hands of any sensible man, mindful of his responsibilities, who seeks to deal with it.

This is an attempt to disregard laws promulgated by the Almighty Himself. It is irreverent legislation in the simplest and strongest sense of the word. Nay, sir, not only so, but it is a step in defiance of the laws of revealed religion as given to men. If there be one inst.i.tution which it seems to me has affected the character of this country, which has affected the whole character of modern civilization, the results of which we can but imperfectly trace and but partly recognize, it is the effect of the inst.i.tution of Christian marriage, the mysterious tie uniting the one man and the one woman until they shall become one and not two persons. It is an inst.i.tution which is mysterious, which is beyond the reach and the understanding of man, but he certainly can best exhibit his sense of duty and proper obligation when he reverently shall submit to and recognize its wisdom. All such laws as proposed by this amendment are stumbling-blocks, and are meant to be stumbling-blocks in the way of that perfect union of the s.e.xes which was intended by the law of Christian marriage.

Suffrage is a political franchise; it is not a right; because the word "right" is used in reference to voting in the XIV. Amendment to the Const.i.tution, that does not make it a right. It is in the very nature of government a political privilege confided, according to the exigency, the expediency, by the wisdom of those who control the government, to a certain cla.s.s. If this right to vote be what the Senator from Indiana declares it to be, a natural and inalienable right, then you have no more right to deny it to a person who is under the age of twenty-one than you have to deny it to a person who is over the age of twenty-one years. Sir, the difference is radical. Voting is no right; it is a privilege granted, a franchise which is granted to certain cla.s.ses, more or less extended according to the supposed expediency which shall control the minds of those who frame the const.i.tution of government for a people. There is no wrong done, so far as the abnegation of a right is involved, by denying this to certain cla.s.ses of a community, whether on account of age or s.e.x or any other supposed causes of disqualification. In this country the whole foundation of our inst.i.tutions has been that the male s.e.x when arrived at years of supposed discretion alone should take part in the political control of the country.

It is not necessary for me to speak now of other influences than those that come from politics; it is not necessary for me to dwell upon the actual and potential influences that control the fate of men and of nations. We all know they are not those most apparent. We all know it is the pa.s.sions, the affections, the sympathies, and desires of the human heart and human ambition that control the vote, and not the vote that controls them. And now you propose to try an "experiment" upon a community composed of your own fellow-citizens, which is in defiance of all human experience, all suggestions of philosophy, of your own laws, and of every lesson you should have drawn from every civilized nation that has preceded you.

Under the operation of this Amendment, what will become of the family hearthstone around which cl.u.s.ter the very best influences of human education? You will have a family with two heads--a "house divided against itself." You will no longer have that healthful and necessary subordination of wife to husband, and that unity of relations.h.i.+p which is required by a true and a real Christian marriage. You will have subst.i.tuted a system of contention and difference warring against the laws of nature herself, and attempting by these new fangled, petty, puny, and most contemptible contrivances, organized in defiance of the best lessons of human experience, to confuse, impede, and disarrange the palpable will of the Creator of the world. I can see in this proposition for female suffrage the end of all that home life and education which are the best nursery for a nation's virtue. I can see in all these attempts to invade the relations between man and wife, to establish differences, to declare those to be two whom G.o.d hath declared to be one, elements of chaotic disorder, elements of destruction to all those things which are, after all, our best reliance for a good and a pure and an honest government.

As I said, Mr. President, I rose simply to express my astonishment that a measure of this kind could have received the a.s.sent which it apparently has received from the Senate of the United States in the vote just recorded. The subject is too broad, it is too deep, it is too serious to attempt to discuss it unprepared and within the time which is allotted to me. I sincerely hope that if this subject is to be acted upon, it will be after long, serious, severe, close consideration. Let all sides of the subject be viewed in all its vastness and far-reaching consequences. Let Senators consider the results, and let at least their aims in this matter be something higher than mere political and partisan considerations, which I fear have animated much of the discussion to which we have listened. Mr.

President, I trust sincerely that the vote just taken, indicating the refusal of the Senate to lay this bill upon the table, may not indicate the will of the Senate in respect of this Amendment.

We have no right to subject this or any other portion of our fellow-citizens to so sad, so untoward, so unhappy an experiment as is here proposed. I have sat in this Chamber, and seen laws leveled with the most serious and cruel penalties against a cla.s.s of people practicing polygamy in our Territories. What will this law do? Will it not in fact sever those relations to which I have referred as being essential for the virtue and safety of a State?

What is your State unless it is founded upon virtuous and happy homes? And where can there be a virtuous and happy home unless a Christian marriage shall have consecrated it?

No, Mr. President, I trust that this Amendment will not be adopted, that we shall not trifle in this way with the happiness of a large portion of our fellow-citizens, that we shall not set what I must consider this indecorous example of government; and I trust that the vote of the Senate most emphatically will stop here, and I trust stop permanently even the suggestion of granting the political franchise of voting to the women of America. They do not need it, sir. I can not, of course, speak for all, but I know that I can speak the sentiment of many when I say that to them the proposition is abhorrent to take them from the retirement where their sway is so admitted, so beneficent, so elevating, and to throw them into another sphere for which they are totally unfitted and where all that at present adorns and protects them must be taken away by the rough and vulgar contact with those struggles which men are much better fitted to meet.

No, sir; the relations of the s.e.xes as they exist to-day under the laws of this country have produced happy and stable government, or at least are not responsible for the evil features which we witness. The best protection for the women of America is in the respect and the love which the men of America bear to them. Every man conversant with the practical affairs of life knows that the fact, that the mere fact that it is a woman who seeks her rights in a court of justice alone gives her an advantage over her contestant which few men are able to resist, I would put it to any who has practiced law in the courts of this country; let him stand before a jury composed only of men, let the case be tried only by men; let all the witnesses be men; and the plaintiff or the defendant be a woman, and if you choose to add to that, even more unprotected than women generally are, a widow or an orphan, and does not every one recognize the difficulty, not to find protection for her rights, but the difficulty to induce the men who compose the juries of America to hold the balance of justice steadily enough to insure that the rights of others are not invaded by the force of sympathy for her s.e.x? These are common every-day ill.u.s.trations. They could be multiplied _ad infinitum_.

Mr. President, there never was a greater mistake, there never was a falser fact stated than that the women of America need any protection further than the love borne to them by their fellow-countrymen. Every right, every privilege, many that men do not attempt, many that men can not hope for, are theirs most freely. Do not imperil the advantages which they have, do not attempt in this hasty, ill-considered, shallow way to interfere with the relations which are founded upon the laws of nature herself. Depend upon it, Mr. President, man's wisdom is best shown by humble attention, by humble obedience to the great laws of nature; and those discoveries which have led men to their chiefest enjoyment and greatest advantages have been from the great minds of those who did lay their ears near the heart of nature, listened to its beatings, and did not attempt to correct G.o.d's handiwork by their own futile attempts at improvement.

Mr. STEWART.--Mr. President, I listened to the speech of the Senator from Delaware with great attention; I appreciate his feelings on the subject; and it has occasioned me to have some reflection upon this subject during the time he was speaking. I want to call the attention of the Senator from Delaware and of the Senate and of the country to a few facts in regard to this matter of woman's rights, and to see whether it has not been well to change some of the ancient order of things. There was a time among our Anglo-Saxon fathers when it was seriously discussed in the law-books what size the whip should be with which a husband could properly chastise his wife. If it was no larger than the thumb, I believe no action would lie. Those were the good old times, and those times you can see ill.u.s.trated to-day all over the world where savages----

Mr. SARGENT.--That was when we were near to nature.

Mr. STEWART.--Yes; that was when man held sway, and when G.o.d's law of man's supremacy was omnipotent! Then harmony was preserved. If you will go out into my State and see the Indian women carrying the loads on their backs and the men riding on horses, and the women doing the work, you will see the harmony of the supremacy of man! Now, I undertake to say that there is no surer criterion of the civilization of any nation than the position which woman occupies; and the less dependent she is, the more she has to do with the management of society, the more she is regarded as an individual, the higher that society stands; but where she depends exclusively on man and man's justice, there you have absolute barbarism. Do you think that women have been less loyal to their husbands, do you think that virtue has been less protected in this country since the rights of women were vindicated by the law, since they were ent.i.tled to hold property?

Have they not been as good wives as they were formerly? Has society been injured thereby? Show me the nation that elevates its women and acknowledges their rights and protects them by the law and severs them in point of protection from the caprice or the sympathy of men--show me that nation, and that nation shall be first. It is one of the evidences of the advance of civilization in America that woman does occupy the position she does here; and it is idle to say that society will be destroyed by recognizing her as having rights to protect.

It is very well for women who chance to have kind husbands and luxurious homes, under the flattery of their husbands, to sneer at their less fortunate sisters who are debarred every right. It is very well for those who have luxury and power and wealth to trample upon the unfortunate that cry for bread and for help. It is very easy to philosophize about laws and say that women are not fit for this place and not fit for that; that it is indelicate, and all that kind of thing, to allow her to earn an honest living or to have a place in a Department where she can do work; it is very well for us to say, "Here, we will give her only half pay for the same labor;" but they who serve and they who suffer feel it differently. How is the voice of women on this subject to be heard? Shall it be heard from that cla.s.s only who are satisfied with their protection, or shall the voice of the weak and the starving be heard? There is no way for it to be heard. We see it daily. You talk about degradation. One of the great sources of the degradation of this country, one of the great sources of the breaking up of families and destroying society is your low groggeries and your gambling-houses and your places of resort for bad men, that are tolerated in spite of your laws and will be so long as men only vote. The women suffer by these things; and that consideration alone has often made me hesitate upon this question. I do believe that if the good women of America could speak to-day they would reform many evils that we wink at or allow to exist because we want the votes of the parties who are committing these sins against society. I say let the women have a voice; and when it is said that this is ill-considered, that this is not the proper time, and that this is too serious a business to be considered by the Senate of the United States on this bill, I tell you society is marching on to it, and as I remarked before, it will not be ten years before there will be no voice in this Senate against female suffrage. It is necessary for women, if they are to be protected in society and not to be the prey of man, that they shall have the ballot to protect themselves. It is the only thing in a free government that can protect any one; and whether it is a natural right or an artificial right it is nonsense to discuss. It is a necessary right; it is necessary to freedom; it is necessary to equal rights; it is necessary to protection; it is necessary for every cla.s.s to have the ballot if we are to have a square deal.

Mr. BOREMAN.--I had not intended to utter a word. I supposed the bill would pa.s.s upon the report which was made by the committee.

I am inclined now to think that if it had not been for the unfortunate, if I may say so, amendment offered by my friend from California [Mr. Sargent] it would have pa.s.sed long since. But this question of woman suffrage is one upon which all our friends probably do not desire to vote either one way or the other, and it is a very convenient way to get rid of voting on the question directly to lay this bill on the table. Fortunately that question has been settled for the present, and I am glad the Senate has seen fit not to lay the bill on the table.

Mr. EDMUNDS.--The Senator speaks about people not wis.h.i.+ng to vote on the amendment directly; and as I made the motion to lay on the table I a.s.sume that he refers to me. I beg to disabuse his mind on that subject, inasmuch as I am opposed to the amendment and am perfectly free to vote against it, and in doing so I suppose I represent, according to the latest advices I have, a very large majority of the people of Vermont.

Mr. BOREMAN.--I agree with the Senator from Vermont on the subject of woman suffrage myself.

Mr. EDMUNDS.--Then I hope the Senator will not suggest that I am trying to dodge the question by moving to lay the bill on the table.

Mr. BOREMAN.--Not at all. I did not allude to the Senator who made the motion; and the remark I made was more intended to be playful than serious. I simply thought that probably the bill had enough friends to pa.s.s it if that subject was not mooted. I may be mistaken. However, I shall be glad to have a vote on the bill either with or without woman suffrage incorporated in it. I shall vote against incorporating it, but if it is put there I shall nevertheless be gratified to have the bill pa.s.sed. I feel no interest in it except as representing what I believe to be the interests and wishes of those to be affected by it. I think the circ.u.mstances are such as to justify Congress in organizing the Territory, else as representing the committee I should not have reported the bill. That is all I desire to say.

The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Anthony in the chair).--The question is on the amendment of the Senator from California [Mr. Sargent], upon which the yeas and nays have been ordered.

The Secretary proceeded to call the roll.

Mr. JOHNSON (when his name was called).--On this question I am paired with the Senator from Alabama [Mr. Spencer]. If he were here he would vote "yea" and I should vote "nay."

Mr. BOGY (after having first voted in the negative).--I rise to withdraw my vote. At the time I voted I forgot that I was paired with the Senator from Arkansas [Mr. Dorsey]. I should have voted "nay" and he would have voted "yea."

The PRESIDING OFFICER.--The vote will be withdrawn if there be no objection.

Mr. MORRILL, of Maine (after having first voted in the negative).--It occurs to me that I am paired with the Senator from Illinois (Mr. Oglesby). If he were here he would vote "yea"

and I should vote "nay." I ask leave to withdraw my vote.

The PRESIDING OFFICER.--Leave will be granted if there is no objection.

The roll-call having been concluded, the result was announced--yeas 19, nays 27; as follows:

YEAS--Messrs. Anthony, Carpenter, Chandler, Conover, Ferry of Michigan, Flanagan, Gilbert, Harvey, Mitch.e.l.l, Morton, Patterson, Pratt, Sargent, Sprague, Stewart, Tipton, Washburn, West, and Windom--19.

NAYS--Messrs. Allison, Bayard, Boreman, Boutwell, Buckingham, Clayton, Conkling, Cooper, Davis, Edmunds, Frelinghuysen, Hager, Hamilton of Maryland, Hitchc.o.c.k, Jones, Kelly, McCreery, Merrimon, Morrill of Vermont, Norwood, Ramsey, Ransom, Saulsbury, Scott, Sherman, Wadleigh, and Wright--27.

ABSENT--Messrs. Alcorn, Bogy, Brownlow, Cameron, Cragin, Dennis, Dorsey, Fenton, Ferry of Connecticut, Goldthwaite, Gordon, Hamilton of Texas, Hamlin, Howe, Ingalls, Johnson, Lewis, Logan, Morrill of Maine, Oglesby, Pease, Robertson, Schurz, Spencer, Stevenson, Stockton, and Thurman--27.

So the amendment was rejected.

The PRESIDING OFFICER.--The question now is on ordering the bill to be engrossed for a third reading.

Mr. MORTON called for the yeas and nays; and they were ordered.

Mr. EDMUNDS.--I ask the chairman of the committee if the clause still stands in the bill which authorizes all the male inhabitants of that Territory to vote at the first election?

Mr. BOREMAN.--I think the Senator is mistaken about that.