Chapter XVII · (continued 2)

The argument for aristocracies and monarchies has ever been that the masses of the people do not know enough to take care of the high concerns of government. If they do not, the human race is in a miserable condition. If, indeed, the great masses of mankind, who are permitted to transact their own business, are incompetent to participate in government, then farewell to the republican system of government; it can not stand a day; it is a wrong foundation. Our principles of government are radically wrong if gentlemen's fears on this subject are well grounded. Thank God, I know they are not. I know that all the defects and evils of our Government have not come from the ignorant masses; but the frauds and the devices of the higher intellects and the more cultivated minds have brought upon our Government all those scars by which it has been disfigured.

Why, sir, look at the administration of the Southern governments in the seceded States, where their public men were advocates of the doctrine that suffrage should be restricted, and generally that republican governments were wrong. I had a great deal of private conversation with the gentlemen who were formerly in these halls representing those governments, and I hardly ever conversed with a single man of them from that part of the country who believed that a republican government could or ought to stand. Some of them used to say, "How can the mechanic, how can the laboring man understandingly participate in these high and complicated affairs of Government?" Those men at heart were aristocrats or monarchists; they did not believe in your republican Government. I, on the other hand, believe that the safety of our Government depends on unlimited franchise, or, rather, I should say, on franchise limited only by that discretion which fits a man to manage his own concerns. Let a man arrive at the years of majority, when the Government and the experience of the world say that he has attained to such an age and such discretion that it is safe to intrust him with his own affairs, and then if he can not be permitted to participate in the Government, I say again, farewell to republican government; it can not stand.

It was for these reasons that, when I introduced the original bill, I put it upon the most liberal principles of franchise except as to females. The question of female suffrage had not then been much agitated, and I knew the community had not thought sufficiently upon it to be ready to introduce it as an element in our political system. While I am aware of that fact, I think it will puzzle any gentleman to draw a line of demarkation between the right of the male and the female on this subject. Both are liable to all the laws you pass; their property, their persons, and their lives are affected by the laws. Why, then, should not the females have a right to participate in their construction as well as the male part of the community? There is no argument that I can conceive or that I have yet heard, that makes any discrimination between the two on the question of right.

Why should there be any restriction? Is it because gentlemen apprehend that the female portion of the community are not as virtuous, that they are not as well-calculated to consider what laws and principles of the Government will conduce to their welfare as men are? The great mass of our educated females understand all these great concerns of government infinitely better than that great mass of ignorant population from other countries which you admit to the polls without hesitation.

But, sir, the right of suffrage, in my judgment, has bearings altogether beyond any rights of persons or property that are to be vindicated by it. I lay it down that in any free community, if any particular class of that community are excluded from this right they can not maintain their dignity; it is a brand of Cain upon their foreheads that will sink them into contempt, even in their own estimation. My judgment is that if this right was accorded to females, you would find that they would be elevated in their minds and in their intellects. The best discipline you can offer them would be to permit and to require them to participate in these great concerns of Government, so that their rights and the rights of their children should depend in a manner upon the way in which they understand these great things.

What would be the effect upon their minds? Would it not be, I ask you, sir, to lead them from that miserable amusement of reading frivolous books and novels and romances that consume two-thirds of their time now, from which they learn nothing, and draw their attention to matters of more moment, more substance, better calculated to well-discipline the mind? In my judgment it would. I believe it would tend to educate them as well as the male part of the population. Take the negroes, who, it is said, are ignorant, the moment you confer the franchise on them it will lead them to struggle to get an understanding of the affairs of Government, so as to be able to participate intelligently in them. They will then understand that they are made responsible for the Government under which they live. In my judgment, this is the reason why the fact exists, which is acknowledged everywhere, that the great mass of our population rise immensely higher in intellect and every quality that should adorn human nature, above the peasantry and working-classes of the Old World. Why is this? I think much of it results from the fact that the people of this country are compelled to serve on juries, to participate in the government of their own localities in various capacities, and finally to take part in all the great concerns of Government. That elevates a man, and makes him feel his own consequence in the community in which he lives.

It is for these reasons as much as any other, that I wish to see the franchise extended to every person of mature age and discretion who has committed no crime. I know very well that prejudices against female voting have descended legitimately to us from the Old World; yea, more than anything else, from that common law which we lawyers have all studied as the first element in jurisprudence. That system of law really sank the female to total contempt and insignificance, almost annihilated her from the face of the earth. It made her responsible for nothing. So far was she removed from participating in anything or being responsible for anything, that if she even committed a crime in the presence of her husband she was not by that old law answerable for it. He was her guardian; he had the right to correct her as the master did his slave in the South. Such was the chivalry of that old common law from which we derive our judicial education. A vast remnant of that old prejudice is still lurking in the minds of our community. It is a mere figment of proscription and nothing else, descended to us, and we have not overcome it. It is not founded in reason; it is not founded in common sense; and it is being done away with very fast too.

I know that those women who have taken these things into consideration, with minds as enlightened and as intelligent as our own, have done immense good to their sex by agitating these great subjects against all the ridicule and all the contempt that has been wielded against them from the time they commenced the agitation. I know that in my own State we had, a few years ago, a great many laws on our statute-book depriving females of a great many rights without the least reason upon earth. Perhaps it was because the question was not agitated, and because it did not particularly concern the males, that they did not turn their attention to it; but when agitated in the Women's Rights Conventions that have been so abused and ridiculed throughout the country, man could no longer shut his eyes to the glaring defects that existed in our system, and our Legislature has corrected many of those abuses, and placed the rights of the female upon infinitely higher grounds than they occupied there thirty years ago; I believe this remark is as applicable to many other States as it is to Ohio. I tell you the agitation of these subjects has been salutary and good; and our male population would no more go back to divest women of the rights they have acquired, than they would go back now to slavery itself, in the advance we have lately made.

What do I infer, then, from all this? Seeing that their rights rest upon the same foundation and are only kept down by proscription and prejudice, I think I know that the time will come—not to-day, but the time is approaching—when every female in the country will be made responsible for the just government of our country as much as the male; her right to participate in the Government will be just as unquestioned as that of the male. I know that my opinions on this subject are a little in advance of the great mass, probably, of the community in which I live; but I am advancing a principle. I shall give a vote on this amendment that will be deemed an unpopular vote, but I am not frightened by that. I have been accustomed to give such votes all my life almost, but I believe they have been given in the cause of human liberty and right and in the way of the advancing intelligence of our age; and whenever the landmark has been set up the community have marched up to it. I think I am advocating now the same kind of a principle, and I have no doubt that sooner or later it will become a fixed fact, and the community will think it just as absurd to exclude females from the ballot-box as males.

I do not believe it will have any unfavorable effect upon the female character, if women are permitted to come up to the polls and vote. I believe it would exercise a most humane and civilizing influence upon the roughness and rudeness with which men meet on these occasions, if the polished ladies of the land would come up to the ballot-box clothed with these rights and participate in the exercise of the franchise. It has not been found that association with ladies is apt to make men rude and uncivilized; and I do not think the reflex of it prevents that lady-like character which we all prize so highly. I do not think it has that effect. On the other hand, in my judgment, if it was popular to-day for ladies to go to the polls, no man would regret their presence there, and the districts where their ballots were given would be harmonized, civilized, and rendered more gentlemanly, if I may say so, on the one side and on the other, and it would prevent the rude collisions that are apt to occur at these places, while it would reflect back no uncivilizing or unlady-like influence upon the female part of the community. That is the way I judge it. Of course, as it has never been tried in this country, it is more or less of an experiment; but here in this District is the very place to try your experiment.

I know that the same things were said about the abolition of slavery. I was here. Gentlemen know very well that there was a strong desire entertained by many gentlemen on this floor that emancipation, if it took place, should be very gradual, very conservative, a little at a time. I was the advocate of striking off the shackles at one blow, and I said that the moment you settled on that the community would settle down upon this principle of righteousness, justice, and liberty, and be satisfied with it, but just as long as you kept it in a state of doubt and uncertainty, going only half way, just so long it would be an irritating element in our proceedings. It is just so now with this question. Do not understand that I expect that this amendment will be carried. I do not. I do not know that I would have agitated it now, although it is as clear to me as the sun at noonday, that the time is approaching when females will be admitted to this franchise as much as males, because I can see no reason for the distinction. I agree, however, that there is not the same pressing necessity for allowing females as there is for allowing the colored people to vote, because the ladies of the land are not under the ban of a hostile race grinding them to powder. They are in high fellowship with those who do govern, who, to a great extent, act as their agents, their friends, promoting their interests in every vote they give, and, therefore, communities get along very well without conferring this right upon the female. But when you speak of it as a right, and as a great educational power in the hands of females, and I am called on to vote on the subject, I will vote that which I think under all circumstances is right, just, and proper. I shrink not from the question because I am told by gentlemen that it is unpopular. The question with me is, is it right? Show me that it is wrong, and then I will withhold my vote; but I have heard no argument that convinces me that the thing is not right.

There has been something said about this right of voting, as to whether it is a natural or a conventional right. I do not know that there is much difference between a natural and a conventional right. Right has its hold upon the conscience in the inevitable fitness of things, and whether it springs from nature or from any other cause right is right, and a conventional right is as sacred as a natural right. I can not distinguish them; I know of no difference between them. It certainly does not seem to me that it would be right now if a new community is about to set up a government, for one-third of them to seize upon that government and say they will govern, and the rest shall have nothing to do with it. It seems to me there is a wrong done to those who are shut out from any participation in the Government, and that it is a violation of their rights; and what odds does it make whether you call it a natural, or conventional, or artificial right? I contend that when you set up a Government you shall call every man who has arrived at the years of discretion, who has committed no crime, into your community and ask him to participate in setting up that Government; and if you shut him out without any reason, you do him a wrong, one of the greatest wrongs that you can inflict upon a man. If it is to be done to me or to my posterity, I say to you take their lives, but do not deprive them of the right of standing upon the same foothold, upon the same platform in their political rights with any other man in the community. I will compromise no such principles. I contend before God and man ever, always, that they shall stand upon the same platform in setting up their governments, and in continuing them after they are set up, and I will brand it as a wrong and an injustice in any man to deprive any portion of the population, unless it be for crime or offence, from participating in the Government to the same extent that he participates himself. If they are ignorant, so much the greater necessity that they have this weapon in their hands to guard themselves against the strong. The weaker, the more ignorant, and the more liable they are to be imposed upon, the greater the necessity of having this great weapon of self-defence in their hands.

I know very well that great prejudices have existed against colored people; but my word for it, the moment they are admitted to the ballot-box, especially about the second Tuesday of October in our State, you will find them as genteel a set of men as you know anywhere; as much consideration will be awarded to them; they will be men; they will be courted; their rights will be awarded to them; they will be made to feel, and it will go abroad that they are not the subjects of utter contempt that can be treated as men see fit to treat them; but they will rise in the scale of the community, and finally occupy a platform according to their merits, which they never can obtain; and you will never be able to make anything of any portion of the community black or white, while you exclude them from the ballot-box.

These, sir, are the reasons why I introduce this bill, and to vindicate them I have spoken. I know I am not able to set forth anything new on this subject. Every American citizen has reflected upon it until his mind is made up, and the thing itself is so universally approved by our community, that the only wonder is that when we propose to extend this franchise to all the people alike anybody is found in opposition to it.

Mr. Yates: Mr. President, I propose to occupy the time of the Senate for but a few moments by way of explanation of my position on this subject. Honorable Senators seem to think there is some little embarrassment in the position in which we are placed upon this question. There is certainly none whatever to my mind. I must confess, after an examination of this question, that logically there are no reasons in my mind which would not permit women to vote as well as men, according to the theory of our Government—a Government of the people, by the people, and for the people.

But, sir, that question as to whether ladies shall vote or not is not an issue now. That was not the question at the last election. That was not the question that was argued in another part of this Capitol. That was not embraced in the bill now before us for consideration. Questions of a different character engross our attention; and, sir, we have but one straightforward course to pursue in this matter. While I may and do indorse, I believe, substantially all that my honorable friend from Ohio has said, and while I can not state perhaps a good reason why under our form of government all persona, male and female, should not exercise the right of suffrage, yet we have another matter on hand now. We have fought the fight, and our banners blaze victoriously in the sky. The honorable Senator from Pennsylvania stands humbled and overcome at his defeat, and he might just as well bow his head before the wheels of that Juggernaut of which he spoke, which has crushed him to the earth, and say, let the vox populi, which is the vox Dei, be the rule of this land.

I believe that this issue will come, and if the gentleman proposes to make it in the next elections, I shall be with him perhaps on the question of universal suffrage; for, sir, I am for universal suffrage. I am not for qualified suffrage; I am not for property suffrage; T am not for intelligent suffrage, as it is termed; but I am for universal suffrage. That is my doctrine. But, sir, when it is proposed to crush out the will of the American people by an issue which certainly is not made in sincerity and truth, then I have no difficulty whatever. While I do not commit myself against the progress of human civilization, because I believe that time is coming, in voting "no" on this amendment I only vote to maintain the position for which I have fought, and for which my State has fought. My notions are peculiar on this subject. I confess that I am for universal suffrage, and when the time comes I am for suffrage by females as well as males; but that is not the point before us.

Mr. Wilson: The Senator from Pennsylvania demands that I shall express my concurrence in or my opposition to his amendment. I tell him, without the least hesitation, I shall vote against it. I am opposed to connecting together these two questions, enfranchisement of black men and the enfranchisement of women, and therefore shall vote against his amendment.

These ladies in the conventions recently held seem to have made a great impression upon the Senator from Pennsylvania. While I heard him reading their speeches, I could not but regret that the Senator had not read the speeches of some of those ladies and the speeches of some of those gentlemen who attended those recent meetings, before he came into the Senate. If he had read the speeches of the ladies and gentlemen who have attended these conventions during the past few years, their speeches might have made as great an impression on him at an earlier day as they seem to have done at this; and if they had done so, the Senator might have made a record for liberty, justice, and humanity he would have been proud of after he leaves the Senate. I have, sir, quite the advantage of the honorable Senator. I have been accustomed to attend the meetings of some of these ladies and gentlemen for many years, and read their speeches too. I read these speeches for the freedom of all, and for the enfranchisement of all, woman included. Before I came to the Senate of the United States, I entertained the conviction that it would be better for this country, that our legislation would be more humane, more for liberty, more for a high civilization, if the women of the country were permitted to vote, and every year of my life has confirmed that conviction. I have been more than ever convinced of it since I have read the opinions of one of the foremost men of this or any other age—John Stuart Mill.

But I say to the Senator from Pennsylvania that while these are my opinions, while I will vote now or at any time for woman suffrage, if he or any other Senator will offer it as a distinct, separate measure, I am unalterably opposed to connecting that question with the pending question of negro suffrage. The question of negro suffrage is now an imperative necessity; a necessity that the negro should possess it for his own protection; a necessity that he should possess it that the nation may preserve its power, its strength, and its unity. We have fought that battle, as has been stated by the Senator from Illinois; we have won negro suffrage for the District of Columbia, and I say I believe we have won for all the States; and before the 4th of March, 1869, before this Administration shall close, I hope that the negro in all the loyal States will be clothed with the right of suffrage. That they will be in the ten rebel States I can not doubt, for patriotism, liberty, justice, and humanity demand it.

This bill, embodying pure manhood suffrage, is destined to become the law in spite of all opposition and all lamentations. I am opposed, therefore, to associating with this achieved measure the question of suffrage for women. That question has been discussed for many years by ladies of high intelligence and of stainless character—ladies who have given years of their lives to the cause of liberty, to the cause of the bondman, to the cause of justice and humanity, to the improvement of all and the elevation of all. No one could have heard them or have read their speeches years ago, without feeling that they were in earnest. They have made progress; these women have instructed the country; women, and men too, have been instructed; progress is making in that direction; but the public judgment is not so pronounced in any one State to-day in favor of woman suffrage, as to create any large and general movement for it. Time is required to instruct the public mind and to carry forward and to concentrate the public judgment in favor of woman suffrage. All public men are not in its favor as is the Senator from Ohio, as has already been proved in this debate. I am, therefore, sir, for keeping these questions apart. I am for securing the needed suffrage for the colored race. I am for enfranchising the black man, and then if this other question shall come up in due time, and I have a vote to give, I shall be ready to give my vote for it. But to vote for it now is to couple it with the great measure now pressing upon us, to weaken that measure and to endanger its immediate triumph, and therefore I shall vote against the amendment proposed by the Senator from Pennsylvania, made, it is too apparent, not for the enfranchisement of woman, but against the enfranchisement of the black man.

Mr. Johnson: The immediate question before the Senate, I understand, is upon the amendment offered by the honorable member from Pennsylvania, which, if I am correctly informed, is to strike out the word "male," so as to give to all persons, independent of sex, the right of voting. It is, therefore, a proposition to admit to the right of suffrage all the females in the District of Columbia who may have the required residence and are of the required age. I am not aware that the right is given to that class anywhere in the United States. I believe for a very short time—my friend from New Jersey will inform me if I am correct—it was more or less extended to the women of New Jersey; but, if that be an exception, it is, as far as I am informed, the only exception; and there are a variety of reasons why, as I suppose, the right has never been extended as now proposed.

Ladies have duties peculiar to themselves which can not be discharged by anybody else; the nurture and education of their children, the demands upon them consequent upon the preservation of their household; and they are supposed to be more or less in their proper vocation when they are attending to those particular duties. But independent of that, I think if it was submitted to the ladies—I mean the ladies in the true acceptation of the term—of the United States, the privilege would not only not be asked for, but would be rejected. I do not think the ladies of the United States would agree to enter into a canvass, and to undergo what is often the degradation of seeking to vote, particularly in the cities, getting up to the polls, crowded out and crowded in. I rather think they would feel it, instead of a privilege, a dishonor. There is another reason why the right should not be extended to them, unless it is the purpose of the honorable member and of the Senate to go a step further. The reason why the males are accorded the privilege, and why it was almost universal in the United States with reference to those of a certain age, is that they may be called upon to defend the country in time of war or in time of insurrection. I do not suppose it is pretended that the ladies should be included in the militia organization or be compelled to take up arms to defend the country. That must be done by the male sex, I hope.

But I rose not so much for the purpose of expressing my own opinion, or reasoning rather upon the opinion, as to refer to a sentence or two in a letter written many years ago, by the elder Adams, to a correspondent in Massachusetts. It was proposed at that time in Massachusetts to alter the suffrage. It was then limited in that State. That limitation, it was suggested, should be taken away in whole or in part, and the correspondent to whom this letter was addressed seems to have been in favor of that change. Mr. Adams, under date of the 26th of May, 1776, writes to his correspondent, Mr. James Sullivan, a name famous in the annals of Massachusetts, and well known to the United States, a long letter, of which I shall read only a sentence or two. It is to be found in the ninth volume of the works of John Adams, beginning at page 375. In that letter Mr. Adams, among other things, says: "But let us first suppose that the whole community, of every age, rank, sex, and condition, has a right to vote. This community is assembled. A motion is made and carried by a majority of one voice. The minority will not agree to this. Whence arises the right of the majority to govern and the obligation of the minority to obey?

"From necessity, you will say, because there can be no other rule. But why exclude women?

"You will say, because their delicacy renders them unfit for practice and experience in the great businesses of life and the hardy enterprises of war, as well as the arduous cares of state. Besides, their attention is so much engaged with the necessary nurture of their children, that nature has made them fittest for domestic cares. And children have not judgment or will of their own. True."

And he closes the letter by saying: "Society can be governed only by general rules. Government can not accommodate itself to every particular case as it happens, nor to the circumstances of particular persons. It must establish general comprehensive regulations for cases and persons. The only question is, which general rule will accommodate most cases and most persons. Depend upon it, sir, it is dangerous to open so fruitful a source of controversy and altercation as would be opened by attempting to alter the qualifications of voters; there will be no end of it. New claims will arise; women will demand a vote; lads from twelve to twenty-one will think their rights not enough attended to; and every man who has not a farthing will demand an equal voice with any other in all acts of state. It tends to confound and destroy all distinctions, and prostrate all ranks to one common level."

The honorable member from Ohio seems to suppose that the right should be given as a means, if I understood him, of protecting themselves and as a means of elevating them intellectually. I had supposed the theory was that the woman was protected by the man. If she is insulted she is not expected to knock the man who insults her down, or during the days of the duello to send him a challenge. She goes to her male friend, her husband or brother or acquaintance. Nature has not made her for the rough and tumble, so to speak, of life. She is intended to be delicate. She is intended to soften the asperities and roughness of the male sex. She is intended to comfort him in the days of his trial, not to participate herself actively in the contest either in the forum, in the council chamber, or on the battle-field. As to her not being protected, what lady has ever said that her rights were not protected because she had not the right of suffrage? There are women, respectable I have no doubt in point of character, moral and virtuous women no doubt, but they are called, and properly called, the "strong-minded"; they are in the public estimation contradistinguished from the delicate; they are men in women's garb, ready, I have no doubt, such people would be—and I deem it no disparagement to them; I have no doubt they are conscientious—to go upon the battle-field. Such things have happened. They are willing to take an insult, and horse-whip and chastise the man who has extended the rudeness to them; but they are exceptions to the softness which is the charm of the female character. I appeal to my friend from New York [Mr. Morgan]—I can speak for Baltimore—and to the member from Pennsylvania [Mr. Cowan] who I suppose can speak for Philadelphia, would they have their wives and their daughters seeking to get up to the poll on a hotly-contested election, driven with indignation at times from it, insulted, violence used to them, as is often the case, rudeness of speech sure to be indulged in——

Mr. Wade: I should like to know if that is the character of your city?

Mr. Johnson: Yes.

Mr. Wade: Then it is very different from the community in which I live.

Mr. Johnson: I rather think you might make Cincinnati an exception from what I have heard. I am not speaking for the country, though I have seen it pretty rough in the country; and they have been rough occasionally in Ohio. If they were all of the same temper with my honorable friend who interrupts me of course it would be different, and all could have their rights accorded them.

Mr. Cowan: I should like to ask whether the presence of ladies on an occasion of that kind would not tend to suppress everything of that sort? Would it not turn the blackguard into a gentleman, so that we should have nothing but good conduct?

Mr. Johnson: No, sir; you can not turn a blackguard into a gentleman.

Mr. Cowan: Except by a lady.

Mr. Johnson: No, sir; by no means known to human power. There may be some revulsion that will cause him to cease to be a blackguard for the moment, but as to a lady making a gentleman of a man who insults her it has not happened that I know of anywhere. He may be made somewhat of a gentleman by being cowhided. But the question I put I put in all seriousness. I have seen the elections in Baltimore, where they are just as orderly as they are in other cities; but we all know that in times of high party excitement it is impossible to preserve that order which would be sufficient to protect a delicate female from insult, and no lady would venture to run the hazard of being subjected to the insults that she would be almost certain to receive.

They do not want this privilege. As to protecting themselves, as to taking a part in the Government in order to protect themselves, if they govern those who govern, is not that protection enough? And who does not know that they govern us? Thank God they do. But what more right has a woman, as a mere matter of right independent of all delicacy, to the suffrage than a boy who is just one day short of twenty-one? You put him in your military service when he is eighteen; you may put him in it at a younger age if you think proper; but you will not let him vote. Why? Only upon moral grounds; that is all; not because that boy may not be able to exercise the right, but because, in the language of Mr. Adams, there must be some general rule, which must be observed, because in the absence of such general rule, if you permit excepted cases you might as well abolish all rules, and then where are we, as he properly asks.

I like to learn wisdom from the men of 1776. I know we have had the advantage of living in an age which they did not witness. I have lived a good many years and watched the public men of the day, and I do not think, and I have never been able with all my disposition to think that we are any better than were the men of 1776 and our predecessors on this floor, the men who participated in the deliberations of the Convention which led to the adoption of the Constitution of the United States, the men who were the authors of the State papers which were issued during that period, and which filled the world with admiration and amazement.

From the days of colonization down to the present hour no such proposition as this has received, so far as I am aware, any support, unless it was for a short time in the State of New Jersey. It has nothing to do with the right of negroes to vote. That is perfectly independent. If I desired because I am opposed to that to defeat the bill, I might perhaps, as a mere party scheme, as a measure known to party tactics which govern occasionally some—I do not say that they have not governed me heretofore—vote for this amendment with a view to defeat the bill: but I have lived to be too old and have become too well satisfied of what I think is my duty to the country to give any vote which I do not believe, if it should be supported by the votes of a sufficient number to carry the measure into operation, would redound to the interests and safety and honor of the country.

Mr. Wade: The gentleman seems to suppose that the only reason females should have the right to vote is that they might defend themselves with a cowhide against those who insult them. I do not suppose that giving them the right to vote will add anything to their physical strength or courage. That is the argument of the Senator, and the whole of his argument: but I did not propose that they should vote on such hypothesis or with any view that it should have any such effect. But I do know that as the law stood until very recently in many of the States a husband was not the best guardian for his wife in many cases, and frequently the greatest hardships that I have ever known in the community have arisen from the fact that a good-for-nothing, drunken, miserable man had married a respectable lady with property, and your law turned the whole of it right over to him and left her a pauper at his will. While I was at the bar I was more conversant with the manner in which these domestic affairs were transacted than I am now; and I knew instances of the greatest hardship arising from the fact that the law permitted such things to be done. I have known a drunken, miserable wretch of a husband take possession of a large property of a virtuous, excellent woman, who had a family of small children depending upon her, and turn her out to support her family by sewing and by manual labor; and it is not an uncommon case. The legislators, the males having the law-making power in their hands, especially were not very prompt to correct these evils; they were very slow in doing so. They continued from the old common law, when the memory of man did not run to the contrary, down to a time that is within the recollection of us all; and I do not know but that in some of the States this absurd rule prevails even now. It would not have prevailed if ladies had been permitted to vote for their legislators. They would have instructed them, and would have withheld their votes from every one who would not correct these most glaring evils.

The Senator tells us that the community in which he lives is so barbarous and rude that a lady could not go to the polls to perform a duty which the law permitted without insult and rudeness. That is a state of things that I did not believe existed anywhere. I do not believe that it exists in Baltimore to-day. I do not believe if the ladies of Baltimore should go up to the polls clothed with the legal right to select their own legislators that there is anybody in Baltimore who would insult them on their way in performing that duty. I do not believe that our communities have got to that degree of depravity yet that such kind of rascally prudence is necessary to be exercised in making laws. On the other hand, I have always found wherever I have gone that the rude and the rough in their conduct were civilized and ameliorated by the presence of females; for I do believe, as much as I believe anything else, that, take the world as it is, the female part of it are really more virtuous than the males. I think so; and I think if we were to permit them to have this right, it would tend to a universal reform instead of the reverse; and I do not believe any lady would be insulted in any community that I know anything about while on her way to perform this duty.

As I can see no good reason to the contrary, I shall vote for this proposition. I shall vote as I have often voted, as the Senator from Massachusetts has often voted, what he believed to be right; not because he believed a majority were with him, but because he believed the proposition which he was called upon to vote for was right, just, and proper. It is because I can not see that this is not so that I vote for it. It comes from a Senator who does not generally vote with us; it is a proposition unlooked for from his general course of action in this body, being, as he says, on the conservative list, and generally for holding things just as they are. Well, sir, I am for holding them just as they are, when I think they are right, and when I think they are not, I am for changing them and making them right. I do not think it is right to exclude females from the right of suffrage. As I said before, I do not expect that public opinion will be so correct at this time that my vote will be effective; but nevertheless it would be no excuse for me that I did not do my part toward effecting a reform that I think the community requires, because I did not see that the whole world was going with me. I do not wait for that. I am frequently in minorities. I would as lief be there as anywhere else, provided I see that I am right; and I do not wait for the majority to go with me when I think a proposition is right. Therefore I shall vote for this amendment if nobody else votes for it, trusting that if I am right the world will finally see it and come up to the mark where I am; if I am wrong, on further investigation and further thought I shall be left in the lurch. Believing that I am right, and believing that the world will come up to this standard finally, I am ambitious to make my mark upon it right here.

Mr. Frelinghuysen: Mr. President, the Senator from Maryland has made an inquiry as to the law of New Jersey in reference to women voting. There was a period in New Jersey when, in reference to some local matters, and those only, women voted; but that period has long since passed away; and I think I am authorized in saying that the women of New Jersey to-day do not desire to vote. Sir, I confess a little surprise at the remark which has been so frequently made in the Senate, that there is no difference between granting suffrage to colored citizens and extending it to the women of America. The difference, to my mind, is as wide as the earth. As I understand it, we legislate for classes, and the women of America as a class do vote now, though there are exceptions from the peculiar circumstances of individuals. Do not the American people vote in this Senate to-day on this question? Do they not vote in the House of Representatives? So the women of America vote by their faithful and true representatives, their husbands, their brothers, their sons; and no true man will go to the polls and deposit his ballot without remembering that true and loving constituency that he has at home. More than that, sir, ninety-nine out of a hundred, I believe nine hundred and ninety-nine out of a thousand, of the women in America do not want the privilege of voting in any other manner than that which I have stated. In both these regards there is a vast difference between the situation of the colored citizen and the women of America.

But Mr. President, besides that, the women of America are not called upon to serve the Government as the men of America are. They do not bear the bayonet, and have not that reason why they should be entitled to the ballot; and it seems to me as if the God of our race has stamped upon them a milder, gentler nature, which not only makes them shrink from, but disqualifies them for the turmoil and battle of public life. They have a higher and a holier mission. It is in retirement, to make the character of the coming men. Their mission is at home, by their blandishments and their love to assuage the passions of men as they come in from the battle of life, and not themselves by joining in the contest to add fuel to the very flames. The learned and eloquent Senator from Pennsylvania said, yesterday, with great beauty, that he wanted to cast the angel element into the suffrage system of America. Sir, it seems to me that it would be ruthlessly tearing the angel element from the homes of America, for the homes of the people of America are infinitely more valuable than any suffrage system. It will be a sorry day for this country when those vestal fires of piety and love are put out. Mr. President, it seems to me that the Christian religion, which has elevated woman to her true position as a peer by the side of man from which she was taken; that religion which is a part of the common law of this land, in its very spirit and declarations recognizes man as the representative of woman. The very structure of that religion which for centuries has been being built recognizes that principle, and it is written on its very door-posts. The woman, it is true, was first tempted; but it was in Adam that we all died. The angel, it is true, appeared to Mary; but it is in the God-man that we are all made alive. I do not see that there is any parity of reasoning between the case of the women of America, entitling them or making it desirable that they should have suffrage, and that of the colored citizens of the United States.

Mr. Conness: It does not appear that we can come to a vote to-night upon this proposition, and I therefore rise to propose an adjournment.

Mr. Morrill: Perhaps we can get a vote on this simple amendment.

Mr. Brown and others: Oh, no; let us adjourn.

Mr. Morrill: I doubt whether there is any inclination to talk further on this amendment, and I should be glad to get a vote on it before we adjourn.

Mr. Conness: If the Senate will come to a vote, I will not move an adjournment.

Mr. Brown: Mr. President——

Mr. Doolittle: If the honorable Senator from Missouri will give way, I will renew the motion to adjourn.

Mr. Brown: I do not care particularly to detain the Senate. I have but a very few remarks to make.

Several Senators: Let us adjourn.

Mr. Doolittle: If the honorable Senator will give way, I will renew the motion to adjourn.

The President pro tem.: Does the Chair understand the Senator from Missouri as yielding the floor?

Mr. Brown: Yes, sir.

Mr. Doolittle: I move that the Senate do now adjourn.

The motion was agreed to; and the Senate adjourned.

In Senate, Wednesday, December 12, 1866.

Prayer by the Chaplain, Rev. E. H. Gray.

The Journal of yesterday was read and approved.

PETITIONS AND MEMORIALS.

The President pro tem.: The Chair has received, and takes this opportunity to lay before the Senate, the memorial of William Boyd, of Washington City, District of Columbia, the substance of which, stated in his own words, is:

I humbly ask your Honorable Body that you make no distinctions in regard to either color or sex if you should think proper to extend the elective franchise in this District, which I beg of your Honorable Body to do immediately; so that hereafter there shall be no distinction of race or sex. I am among those who believe that slavery will never die, until all laws are so constructed as to hold all mankind as equal before the law.

SUFFRAGE IN THE DISTRICT.

The President pro tem.: The unfinished business is the bill (S. No. 1) to regulate the elective franchise in the District of Columbia which is now before the Senate as in Committee of the Whole. The pending question is on the motion of the Senator from Pennsylvania [Mr. Cowan], to amend the amendment reported by the Committee on the District of Columbia, by striking out in the second line of its first section the word "male" before "person." Upon this question the Senator from Missouri is entitled to the floor.

Mr. Brown: Mr. President, I do not believe that the pending amendment to the bill extending the franchise to women in the District of Columbia, offered by the Senator from Pennsylvania, was designed to be carried out into practical legislation at this time or in this connection. I think it was rather intended to elicit an expression of opinion from members of the Senate upon the general proposition involved. If it were to go into practical effect, I am one of those who believe that it would be necessary to accompany it by a good deal of other legislation to prevent it from degenerating into abuse, and perhaps corrupting many of those it designs to advance in position and influence. But accepting the matter in the light which I have stated, for one I am willing to express an opinion very freely on the subject. I have to say then, sir, here on the floor of the American Senate, I stand for universal suffrage, and as a matter of fundamental principle do not recognize the right of society to limit it on any ground of race, color, or sex. I will go further and say that I recognize the right of franchise as being intrinsically a natural right; and I do not believe that society is authorized to impose any limitation upon it that does not spring out of the necessities of the social state itself. These may seem, Mr. President, extreme views, but they conform to the rigid logic of the question, and I defy any Senator here who abides that logic to escape that conclusion. Sir, I have been shocked, yes, shocked, during the course of this debate at expressions which I have heard so often fall from distinguished Senators, and apparently with so little consideration of what the heresy irresistibly leads to, saying in substance that they recognize in this right of franchise only a conventional or political arrangement that may be abrogated at will and taken from any; that it is simply a privilege yielded to you and me and others by society or the Government which represents society; that it is only a gracious boon from some abstract place and abstract body for which we should be proud and thankful; in other words, that it is not a right in any sense, but only a concession. Mr. President, I do not hold my liberties by any such tenure. On the contrary, I believe that whenever you establish that doctrine, whenever you crystalize that idea in the public mind of this country, you ring the death-knell of American liberties. You take from each, what is perhaps the highest safeguard of all, the conviction that there are rights of men embracing their liberty in society, and substitute a skepticism on all matters of personal freedom and popular liberties which will lay them open to be overthrown whenever society shall become sufficiently corrupted by partyism or whenever constitutional majorities shall become sufficiently exasperated by opposition.

Mr. President, so important, yea, so crucial, so to speak, do I deem this position, that I trust I may be pardoned by the Senate if I refer to the abstract grounds, the invincible agreement upon which I deem it to rest. I do this the more readily because in my belief the metaphysical always controls ultimately the practical in all the affairs of life. Now, what are abstract rights? And are there any intrinsic necessary conditions that go to constitute liberty in society? I believe that there are, and that those conditions are as determinable as the liberties they protect. The foundation upon which all free government rests, and out of which all natural rights flow as from a common center, has been well stated by Mr. Herbert Spencer in a late work on "Social Statics," to be "the liberty of each limited by the like liberty of all." As the fundamental truth originating and yet circumscribing the validity of laws and constitutions, it can not be stated in a simpler form. As the rule in conformity with which society must be organized, and which distinguishes where the rightful subordination terminates, and where tyranny, whether of majorities or minorities, begins, it can not be too much commended. "Every man has freedom to do all that he wills, provided he infringes not the equal freedom of any other man," is stated as the law of just social relationships, and in it the rights of individual liberty of thought, of speech, of action, find their complete expression. It will be observed that equality is the essence of it all. In fact, any recognition of an inequality of rights is fatal to liberty.

Observe, furthermore, that those rights inhere in the individual, are part of his existence, and not the gift of any man or aggregation of men. If they were, equality under a despotism might find its justification in the postulate just as well as equality under a republic. Cæsarean Democracy could claim like paternity with American Democracy. The assumption, then, that freedom in any of its forms is a privilege conceded by society is utterly unwarrantable, because society itself is a concession from the individual—the liberty of each limited by the like liberty of all—and such limitation is what society or Government represents. And it is in this sense, and flowing from this axiom, that the rights of franchise originally appertain to all alike; for franchise is in itself nothing more than a mode of participating in the common Government, and represents only the interest each has therein. That limitations may attach thereto, just as they attach to freedom of speech or freedom of action, is perfectly true; but they must be equal limitations, applicable to all alike, growing out of the social relation, and not leveled at the inherent right of any individual or class. Thus the exclusion of criminals from the franchise, the designation of terms of minority as connected with the exercise of political duties, the regulation of the admission to citizenship of persons coming from foreign countries, find their justification in a principle which, so far from recognizing in Government or society a purely arbitrary control of the rights and exercise of self-government or personal liberty, brings it down within rigid and narrow limits of equality and necessity.

There are those, and I am sorry some such have arisen in the Senate to-day, who seek to escape this conclusion, and put the blush upon all free government by affirming, as I have said, that the right of franchise is a purely political right, neither inherent nor inalienable, and may be divested by the citizen or the State at will. The consideration mentioned, that the right of franchise is neither more nor less than the right of self-government as exercised through a participation in the common government of all, shows, however, that if it be not a natural right it will be difficult to say in what a natural right consists. Indeed, it is perhaps the most natural of any of our rights, inasmuch as its denial is the denial of all right to personal liberty, for how can such latter right exist when the right to maintain it among men and the societies of men is denied? Again, if the right to share in the joint government is not inherent, from whence does it come? Who can give the right to govern another? and how can any give what he has not got? Society is but the aggregate of individuals, and in its authority represents only the conceded limitations on all, not any reservoir of human rights, otherwise human rights would vary with every changing association. Still again, if the right of a man as regards Government can be divested either by himself or Government at will, then Government has no limit to its rightful tyranny—it may divest not only one man, but a hundred or a thousand; indeed, why not all but the chosen few or the imperial one, thus arriving logically at oligarchic or despotic rule. And if a man may divest himself of this right, what right is sacred from his renunciation? That a man may refuse to exercise any right is true, and that in changing his abode he may sever his political and social relations is equally true; but these facts only prove that his natural rights inhere in his person, go with him in his movement, subject always to be exercised under the conditions and limitations before recited. After all, to demonstrate the utter falsity and pernicious consequence of the idea that the right to share in the common Government (which is only a synonym for the right of franchise) is a privilege to be farmed out by Government at discretion and to whom it chooses, it is only necessary to ask, if that be so, whence comes the right to representation? Wherein is the foundation for any democratic society, predicated on the rights of individuals? That various mixed Governments do undertake to limit the franchise to the few as a privilege coming from the body-corporate, has nothing to do with the question, for I am discussing now rights, not practices; republics, not aristocracies.

Such I believe, Mr. President, to be the principles on which our personal rights, our liberties in society repose. It is true the argument carries us very far, but not farther, I apprehend, than republican government must go whenever it undertakes to conform its practice to its logic. And having examined the general reasoning that controls the whole question of franchise, let me now advert more particularly to the bearing of that argument upon the proposition submitted by the Senator from Pennsylvania. I know that many affirm that the results to which such reasoning as that I have adduced would lead are themselves conclusive against its force. But that is scarcely a fair mode of judging of the strength and invincibility of any argument, far less one touching interests so momentous in character. To give the objection its greatest force it may be said, "If suffrage be the right of all men, why is it not also the right of all women, of all children?" "Are they not equally interested in good government, and are they not equally capable of expressing through a vote their wish in relation to public affairs?" "Do they not come within the category, the equal liberty of each limited by the like liberty of all, and if so, can the infringement of their liberty by disfranchisement be justified!" To such questions, and, in fact, to the whole inquiry, it may be replied that as freedom finds the expression of its limits in the social relation itself, so long as the marital and paternal state remain as they are now, essential parts to that social relation, so long will there be more or less of constraint involved in their expression through governmental forms. And it may be added also that in so far as marriage and paternity establish an identity of interest between husband and wife, or parent and child, so far the participation of the one in the Government is virtually the participation of both, the franchise of one the franchise of both. Such identity is not always true or equable, but it nevertheless approximates truth, and is therefore the more readily accepted as such in practical affairs.

That the rights of women, however, are intrinsically the same with those of men, may not be consistently denied; and that all the advance of modern civilization has been toward according them greater equality of condition is attested by the current history of every nation within its pale. Rights of married women and minors are constantly finding new expression in our laws and new force in our public opinion, which is only law in process of formation. While it will not be necessary, therefore, to go into those deeper and anterior questions of social life involving the substitution of voluntary for compulsory modes which are agitating so profoundly the intellect of this age, it is important to note that of the three great departments of control in human affairs, namely, morals or conscience, manners or society, governments or laws, the two former have been unreservedly conceded to the full and equal participation of women. And furthermore, I venture to affirm with all confidence, that although the social relation, as it embraces a recognition of family dependence, may present obstacles to an equal influence under present forms of government and to the full exercise of citizen rights on the part of women, yet that the purity, the refinement, the instinctive reading of character, the elegant culture of the women of our land, if brought to bear upon the conduct of political affairs, would do much to elevate them in all their aims, and conform them to higher standards of justice.

Mr. President, I have listened in vain for the argument on which is predicated the assertion that sex alone affords a rightful ground for exclusion from the rights of franchise. I do not find anything to justify that view, even in the position of those who contend that franchise is a mere political privilege and not founded in any right, for that would apply to men equally as to women, and does not touch the question of relative rights. The position would still remain to be established why the franchise should be given to the one and not to the other. It would remain still to present grounds of principle on which that right as such may be denied to her and not denied to him. I have heard reasons of policy, reasons of sentiment, reasons of precedent advanced to justify this exclusion; but in all frankness, and with no disrespect intended, I must say that those which have been presented during this debate seem to me trivial, illogical, and contradictory of one another.

First, it has been said that if women are entitled to the rights of franchise they would correspondingly come under the obligation to bear arms. But, sir, I do not know that there is any necessary connection between the right of franchise and the requirement of service in your army. On the contrary, I do know that all Governments which have existed among men do now recognize the fact that there is no necessary connection between the two; and I do know that no Government has more distinctly recognized this position than the Government of the United States. Are there not large classes even among men in this country who are exempt from service in our armies for physical incapacity and for other reasons? And if exemptions which appertain to males may be recognized as valid, why not similar exemptions for like reason when applied to females? Does it not prove that there is nothing in the argument so far as it involves the question of right? There are Quakers and other religious sects; there are ministers of the gospel—persons having conscientious scruples; indeed, all men over a certain age who under the laws of many of the States are released from service of that character. Indeed, it is the boast of the republic that ours is a volunteer military establishment. Hence I say there is nothing in the position that because she may not be physically qualified for service in your army, therefore you have the right to deny her the franchise on the score of sex. It might be an inquiry of very great interest and worthy of being pursued much further than I have the time or the ability to pursue it just now, how far, if the ballot should be extended to all the women in this land, it would go to modify existing opinion and action and relationship among States so as to obliterate in a great degree the very necessity for your army and navy. I believe, sir, that a very large majority of the wars that have been waged in this world have been wars that were condemned by the moral sense of the nations on both sides; wars that would have been terminated forthwith if that moral sense could have had its rightful influence in controlling the affairs of Government; and I say it is a question that is worthy of consideration how far such an element introduced into your political control would go to obviate these barbarous resorts to force which you now deem essential and which we all deplore, but which it is a folly, if not a crime, to say constitute a reason woman should be denied any right to which she would be otherwise entitled.

Mr. President, a second objection has been taken to any extension of the franchise in this direction, and it is one that perhaps has more seeming force in it than the other. It has been said with a great deal of pathos by the Senator from New Jersey: what, would you have your wives and your daughters mingle in the scenes at the election-booths, go into the riotous demonstrations that attend upon the exercise of the ballot, and become participants in the angry and turbulent strifes that are so characteristic of our political modes. I say with frankness that I would not have wife or daughter mingle in any such scene; I would be loth to have their purity and their virtue exposed to such demoralized surroundings, surroundings that are only too apt to corrupt even the males that mingle in the political arena. But, sir, I contend that that is an argument against the ballot and the hustings and the polling-booths, and not against the rights of woman. It is an argument against those corruptions that you have permitted to grow and fasten upon your political methods and appliances, and not an argument against her rights as contrasted with the rights of man. What! usurp an exclusive control—then degrade the modes of exercising power, and after that say the degradation is reason why the usurpation should continue unchallenged. What profanation of the very powers of thought is that! On the contrary, I am prepared to say that I see no reason, I never have seen any reason, why there might not be changes introduced in your modes of taking the sense of the community, of ascertaining public opinion upon public measures, of making selection even of its individuals for important offices, that would conform them far more to those refinements and those elevations which should characterize and control them, purifications that must render them appropriate for participation in by the most refined of the land, whether male or female. I see no reason why it should not be done. The change has been constant already from the very rudest forms to the forms which we now have, and which I am sorry to say, are sufficiently rude to disgrace the civilization of the age. Why not further amelioration and adaptation? Are we to have no progress in the modes of government among men? Are we and future generations to be ever imprisoned in the uncouth alternative of monarchical or democratic forms as they now obtain? I can not believe it. For five years past we have had revolution enough among us to satisfy even the most conservative that the present is no ultimatum, either of form or substance in political or social affairs. I will go further and venture to say, that there are now seething underneath all the forms of this Government, revolutions still more striking than any one of us have yet witnessed. Beneath all these methods and appliances of administrations and controls among men, I believe there is under our very feet a heaving, unsteady ocean of aroused questioning in which many modes now practiced will sink to rise no more, and out of which other adaptations will emerge that will render far more perfect the reflection of the will of the people; that will perhaps represent minorities as well as majorities; that will disarm corruptions by dispensing with party organizations. It is the very witching hour of change.

And, sir, I do not dread change. Why should we? Is not change the primal condition on which all life is permitted to exist? Change is the very essence of all things pure, the sign and token of the divinity that is within us, and conservatism per se is infidelity against the ordination of God. When, therefore, we see such change in all things that are around us, in fashions and customs and laws and recognitions and intellectualities, even to the supremest generalizations of science, in all things save the elemental principles of our being and by consequence of our rights, why shall we say that these forms into which we have cast administration and government, shall not obey the great law of development and take upon themselves ameliorations better suited to the changing society of mankind, to the wants of a more truthful representation, to the participation by all in the Government that is over all. Mr. President, I am of those who believe that they will. When I look around on the incongruities and corruptions that surround our present system, when I see what politics and government and administration actually are, if I believed there was to be no progress in that direction I should be bereft of all hope and desolate of faith. On the contrary, methinks I can see in the adown vista of the future the golden apples hanging on the tree of promise. It seems to me that the light of the morning is already streaming in upon us that shall illuminate further advancements in the science of government. And why should not even Republican government take to itself other modes of administration without infraction of its fundamental liberties? Why should not large reductions transpire in those opportunities that invite the most sinister combination for offices and spoils? Is there any reason why the emoluments of place should more than repay the labor it calls for? Is there any reason why large abolitions of executive patronage may not transpire; why Government may not generate through examining commissioners, best agencies of its own for the functional work it is called to perform, leaving appeals to the community to pass rather upon controlling measures and general policies and legislative functionaries? Is there any reason why that should not take place? Sir, already, if I mistake not, in the large cities of this land, which are the local points of your domestic political system, the necessity for such a change is being felt and acted upon, and large branches of executive work and supervision are being necessarily put in commission. Mr. President, I think what I have said sufficiently shows that the argument which is advanced, that the present surroundings are such that woman could not properly participate in your elections, is an argument that does not go to the right of the woman, but does go to the wrong of the man. It is a criticism, perhaps a satire upon the civilization of your political system, not a justification for any exclusions practiced under it.

There is one other line of remark that has been indulged in, and only one other so far as I have heard, which calls for any special rejoinder, and that affirms the precedents of the past to be all against any such proposition as that now submitted. It is said that there is no precedent, that it is not customary in any of our governments, that it is not one of the recognitions of our society, that it has never been signified as such in the past. I do not know that such an argument amounts to anything at best, but I do know that the allegation itself has no foundation in fact. I know that in many cases and on many occasions this impassable barrier that is now set forth as dividing the natural rights of man and woman has been broken down and trampled upon, and that, too, without any injury to the society from so doing. Perhaps I can best illustrate this point by what an accomplished lady, who has given much thought and research to the subject, has presented. I read from a contribution she has made to one of our leading public prints. She says:

So long as political power was of an absolute and hereditary character women shared it whenever they happened, by birth, to hold the position to which it was attached. In Hungary, in some of the German States, and in the French Provinces to this day, certain women, holding an inherited right, confer the franchise upon their husbands, and in widowhood empower some relative or accredited agent to be the legislative protector of their property. In 1858, the authorities of the old university town of Upsal granted the right of suffrage to fifty women owning real estate, and to thirty-one doing business on their own account. The representative that their votes elected was to sit in the House of Burgesses. In Scotland, it is less than a century since, for election purposes, parties were unblushingly married in cases where women conveyed a political franchise, and parted after the election. In Ireland, the court of Queen's Bench, Dublin, restored to women, in January, 1864, the old right of voting for town commissioners. The Justice, Fitzgerald, desired to state that ladies were also entitled to sit as town commissioners, as well as to vote for them, and the chief-justice took pains to make it clear that there was nothing in the act of voting repugnant to their habits.

In November, 1864, the Government of Moravia decided that all women who were tax-payers had the right to vote. In the Government of Pitcairn's Island, women over sixteen have voted ever since its settlement. In Canada, in 1850, a distinct electoral privilege was conferred on women, in the hope that thereby the Protestant might balance the Roman Catholic power in the school system. I lived where I saw this right exercised by female property holders for four years. I never heard the most cultivated man, not even that noble gentleman, the late Lord Elgin, object to its results. In New Jersey, the Constitution adopted in 1776, gave the right of suffrage to all inhabitants, of either sex, who possessed fifty dollars in proclamation money. In 1790, to make it clearer, the Assembly inserted the words "he or she." Women voted there till 1838, when, the votes of some colored women having decided an election, the prejudice against the negro came to the aid of lordly supremacy, and an act was passed limiting the right of suffrage to "free white male citizens." In 1852, the Kentucky Legislature conferred the right on widows with children in matters relating to the school system. The same right was conferred in Michigan; and full suffrage was given to women in the State constitution submitted to Kansas in 1860.

I think that is a list of illustrations sufficient to dispose of any argument that may arise on such a score. And now, Mr. President, permit me to say, in concluding the remarks I have felt called upon to make here, that I have spoken rather as indicating my assent to the principle than as expecting any present practical results from the motion in question. In the earliest part of my political life, when first called upon to represent a constituency in the General Assembly of Missouri, in looking around, after my arrival at the seat of Government at those matters that seemed to me of most importance in legislation, I was struck with two great classes of injustices, two great departments in which it seemed to me the laws and the constitutions of my State had done signal wrong. Those were one as respects the rights of colored persons; the other as respects the rights of married women, minors, and females; and I there and then determined that whenever and wherever it should be in my power to aid in relieving them of those inequalities and those injustices, I would do so to the extent of my humble ability. Since then I have labored zealously in those two reforms as far and as fast as a public opinion could be created or elicited to enforce them, and I can say from my own observation that each step of advance taken has been fruitful of all good and productive of no evil. Emancipation of the colored race in Missouri has been achieved in a most thorough manner, substantially achieved even before the war; and to-day the community is ripe for the declaration that all are created equal, and that there is no reason to exclude from any right, civil or political, on the ground of race or color. I feel proud to say likewise that Missouri has gone further, and wiped from her statute-book large portions of that unjust and unfair and illiberal legislation which had been leveled at the rights and the property of the women of the State. Believing that that cause which embraces and embodies the cause of civil liberty will go forward still triumphing and to triumph, I will never, so help me God, cast any vote that may be construed as throwing myself in the face of that progress. Even though I recognize, therefore, the impolicy of coupling these two measures in this manner and at this time, I shall yet record my vote in the affirmative as an earnest indication of my belief in the principle and my faith in the future.

Mr. Davis: Mr. President, our entire population, like that of all other countries, is divided into two great classes, the male and the female. By the census of 1860 the white female population of the United States exceeded thirteen millions, and the aggregate negro population, of both sexes, was below four and a half millions. That great white population, and all its female predecessors, have never had the right of suffrage, or, to use that cant phrase of the day, have never been enfranchised; and such has also been the condition of the negro population. That about one negro in ten thousand in four or five States have been allowed to vote, is too insignificant to be dignified with any consideration as an exception. But now a frenzied party is clamoring to have suffrage given to the negro, while they not only raise no voice for female suffrage, but frown upon and repel every movement and utterance in its favor. Who of the advocates of negro suffrage, in Congress or out of it, dare to stand forth and proclaim to the manhood of America, that the free negroes are fitter and more competent to exercise transcendent political power, the right of suffrage, than their mothers, their wives, their sisters, and their daughters? The great God who created all the races and in every race gave to man woman, never intended that woman should take part in national government among any people, or that the negro, the lowest, should ever have co-ordinate and equal power with the highest, the white race, in any government, national or domestic. To woman in every race He gave correlative, and as high, as necessary, and as essential, but different faculties and attributes, intellectual and moral, as He gave to man in the same race; and to both, those adapted to the equally important but different parts which they were to play in the dramatic destinies of their people. The instincts, the teachings of the distinct and differing, but harmonious organism of each, led man and woman in every race and people and nation and tribe, savage and civilized, in all countries and ages of the world, to choose their natural, appropriate, and peculiar field of labor and effort. Man assumed the direction of government and war, woman of the domestic and family affairs and the care and the training of the child; and each have always acquiesced in this partition and choice. It has been so from the beginning, throughout the whole history of man, and it will continue to be so to the end, because it is in conformity to nature and its laws, and is sustained and confirmed by the experience and reason of six thousand years.

I therefore, Mr. President, am decidedly and earnestly opposed to the amendment moved by my friend from Pennsylvania. There is no man more deeply impressed with or more highly appreciates the important offices which woman exercises over the destiny of race than I do. I concede that woman, by her teachings and influence, is the source of the large mass of the morality and virtue of man and of the world. The benignant and humanizing and important influence which she exercises upon the whole race of man in the proper discharge of her functions and duties can not be overestimated; but that woman should properly perform these great duties, this inappreciably valuable task, it is necessary that she should be kept pure. The domestic altar is a sacred fane where woman is the high and officiating priestess. This priestess should be virtuous, she should be intelligent, she should be competent to the performance of all her high duties. To keep her in that condition of purity, it is necessary that she should be separated from the exercise of suffrage and from all those stern and contaminating and demoralizing duties that devolves upon the hardier sex—man.

What is the proposition now before the Senate? To make pure, cultivated, noble woman a partisan, a political hack, to lead her among the rabble that surround and control by blackguardism and brute force so many of the hustings of the United States. Mr. President, if one greater evil or curse could befall the American people than any other, in my judgment it would be to confer upon the women of America the right of suffrage. It would be a great step in the line of mischief and evil, and it would lead to other and equally fatal steps—in the same direction. Sir, if ever in the depths and silence of night I send up my secret orisons to my Maker, one of the most fervent of my prayers would be that the women of my country should be saved and sheltered by man from this great contamination. It is not necessary to the proper influence and to the legitimate power of woman. A cultivated, enlightened, delicate, refined, and virtuous woman at the family altar is the persuasive and at the same time plastic power that sways and fashions the principles and character of her children, and thus makes her impress upon the future men of America, the Phocians, the Timoleons, the Washingtons, who are the honor of the race, and whose destiny it is to elevate and ennoble it. Mr. President, in proportion as man becomes civilized so increases the power and the influence of woman. In the tribes and nations of the lowest ignorance and barbarism this influence is least—it is most potent where there is the greatest intellectual and moral cultivation of man. I want this gentle and holy influence to continue pure and uncontaminated by keeping it within the domestic fane and afar from party politics. But, sir, it has become the fashion, the philosophy, the frenzy of the day to coin catch-words that carry a seemingly attractive principle, but at the same time alluring and mischievous, and among them is this cry for woman's rights and also for negro suffrage and manhood suffrage and universal suffrage. It is all nothing but slang and demagoguery, and is fraught with naught but evil, mischief, and degradation, individually and nationally. For these reasons, sir, one of the last propositions, or if gentlemen choose, principles which have been or may be propounded to the people of America, or as an amendment to the Constitution of the United States, to which I shall ever give my acceptance, is female suffrage.

I do not deny that our national family properly and wisely comprehends all of the nationalities of Europe who may come here, according to the terms of our naturalization laws, and their posterity; but I assert that negroes, Indians, Mongolians, Chinese, and Tartars ought not and can not safely be admitted to the powers and privileges of citizenship.

I have no doubt that my honorable friend from Pennsylvania desires that the right of suffrage should be given to women; and if he had the power to transfer all the women of the conservative States into and to become residents of the radical States, who imagines that if that were done the Radicals of this House and of the nation would shout in favor of giving to women the right of suffrage? If the Radicals in Congress and out of Congress knew with the certainty of truth that every vote which they will enfranchise by conferring the right of suffrage on the negro, would be cast against that party, in favor of their late southern masters, in favor of the Democracy, in hostility to the schemes of ambition and spoils which are now animating the heart and mind of the great radical organization, who doubts that this party and every mother's son of them would shout for withholding suffrage from the negro?

Mr. Sprague: I know the Senate is impatient for a vote. I know they are determined to vote favorably. When it is necessary that women shall vote for the support of liberty and equality I shall be ready to cast my vote in their favor. The black man's vote is necessary to this at this time....

Mr. Buckalew: I desire to say before the vote is taken on this amendment that I shall vote in favor of it because of the particular position which it occupies. A vote given for this amendment is not a final one. I understand it to pronounce an opinion upon the two propositions which have been undergoing consideration in the Senate, in a comparative manner, if I may use the expression. In voting for this proposition I affirm simply that the principles and the reasonings upon which the bill itself, as reported by the committee, is based, would apply with equal, if not increased force, to the particular proposition contained in the amendment. If that be affirmed, then recurs the question whether it is proper, whether it is expedient at this time to increase, and very extensively increase, suffrage in this country. I do not understand that the general argument on that question is involved in the present motion. I do not understand that it comes up of necessity in considering the proposition covered by the amendment of my colleague which stands simply in contrast with that contained in the bill. I presume there are several gentlemen, members of this body, who will vote with reference to this consideration and who will reserve their opinion, either openly or in their own consciousness, upon the general or indirect question of the extension of suffrage to the females of the United States.

But the occasion invites some remarks beyond the mere statement of this point. The debates which have been going on for three days in this Chamber will go out to the country. They will constitute an element in the popular discussions of the times and awaken a large amount of public attention. This is not the last we shall hear of this subject. It will come to us again; and I am persuaded that one reason why it will come again is that the arguments against the proposed extension of suffrage have not been sufficient; they have been inadequate; they have been placed upon grounds which will not endure debate. Those who are in favor of the extension of suffrage to females can answer what has been said in this Chamber, and they can answer it triumphantly; and you will eventually be obliged to take other grounds than those which have been here stated. From the beginning of this debate there has been either an open or an implied concession of the principle upon which the extension of suffrage is asked; and that is, that there is some natural right or propriety in extending it further than it was extended by those who formed our State and Federal Constitutions; that there is some principle of right or of propriety involved which now appeals powerfully to us in favor of extended and liberal action in behalf of those large classes who have been hitherto disfranchised; upon whom the right of suffrage has not been heretofore conferred.

Having made this concession upon the fundamental ground of the inquiry, or at all events intimated it, the opponents of an extended franchise pass on to particular arguments of inconvenience or inexpediency as constituting the grounds of their opposition.

Now, sir, I venture to say that those who resist the extension of suffrage in this country will be unsuccessful in their opposition; they will be overborne, unless they assume grounds of a more commanding character than those which they have here maintained. This subject of the extension of suffrage must be put upon practical grounds and extricated from the sophisms of theoretical reasoning. Gentlemen must get out of the domain of theory. They must come back again to those principles of action upon which our fathers proceeded in framing our constitutional system. They lodged suffrage in this country simply in those whom they thought most worthy and most fit to exercise it. They did not proceed upon those humanitarian theories which have since obtained and which now seem to have taken a considerable hold on the public mind. They were practical men, and acted with reference to the history and experience of mankind. They were no metaphysicians; they were not reformers in the modern sense of the term; they were men who based their political action upon the experience of mankind, and upon those practical reflections with reference to men and things in which they had indulged in active life. They placed suffrage then upon the broad common-sense principle that it should be lodged in and exercised by those who could use it most wisely and most safely and most efficiently to serve the great ends for which Government was instituted. They had no other ground than this, and their work shows that they proceeded upon it, and not upon any abstract or transcendental notion of human rights which ignored the existing facts of social life.

Now, sir, the objection which I have to a large extension of suffrage in this country, whether by Federal or State power, is this: that thereby you will corrupt and degrade elections, and probably lead to their complete abrogation hereafter. By pouring into the ballot-boxes of the country a large mass of ignorant votes, and votes subjected to pecuniary or social influence, you will corrupt and degrade your elections and lay the foundation for their ultimate destruction. That is a conviction of mine, and it is upon that ground that I resist both negro suffrage and female suffrage, and any other proposed form of suffrage which takes humanity in an unduly broad or enlarged sense as the foundation of an arrangement of political power.

Mr. President, I proposed before the debate concluded, before this subject should be submitted to the Senate for its final decision, to protest against some of the reasoning by which this amendment was resisted. I intended to protest against particular arguments which were submitted; but I was glad this morning that that duty which I had proposed to myself was discharged, and well discharged by the Senator from Missouri [Mr. Brown]. For instance, the argument that the right of suffrage ought not to be conferred upon this particular class because they did not or could not bear arms—a consideration totally foreign and irrelevant, in my opinion, to the question which we are discussing.

But, sir, passing this by, I desire to add a few words before I conclude upon another point which was stated or suggested by the Senator from Missouri, and that is the question of reform or improvement in our election system; I mean in the machinery by which or plans upon which those elections proceed. After due reflection given to this subject, my opinion is that our electoral systems in this country are exceedingly defective, and that they require thorough revision, that to them the hand of reform must be strongly applied if republican institutions are to be ultimately successful with us.

I would see much less objection to your extension of the right of suffrage very largely to classes now excluded if you had a different mode of voting, if you did take or could take the sense of these added classes in a different manner from that which now obtains in popular voting. You proceed at present upon the principle or rule that a mere majority of the electoral community shall possess the whole mass of political power; and what are the inevitable results? First, that the community is divided into parties, and into parties not very unequal in their aggregate numbers. What next? That the balance of power between parties is held by a very small number of voters; and in practical action what is the fact? That the struggle is constantly for that balance of power, and in order to obtain it, all the arts and all the evil influences of elections are called into action. It is this struggle for that balance of power that breeds most of the evils of your system of popular elections. Now, is it not possible to have republican institutions and to eliminate or decrease largely this element of evil? Why, sir, take the State of Pennsylvania, whose voice, perhaps, in this Government is to give direction to its legislation at a given time and take a pecuniary interest in the country largely interested in your laws, looking forward upon the eve of a hotly contested election to some particular measures of Government which shall favor it, with what ease can that interest throw into the State a pecuniary contribution competent to turn the voice of that powerful State and change or determine the policy of your Government. And why so? It is only necessary that this corrupt influence should be exerted very slightly indeed within that State from abroad in order to turn the scale, because you are only to exert your pernicious power upon a small number of persons who hold the balance of power between parties therein. Sir, that organization of our system which allows such a state of things to occur must be inherently vicious. Instead of this being a Government of the whole people, which is our fundamental principle, which is our original idea, it is a Government, in the first place, of a majority only of the people; and in the next place, it is in some sort a Government of that small number of persons who give preponderance to one party over another, and who may be influenced by fanaticism, corruption, or passion.