The woman movement in America; a short account of the struggle for equal rights

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Preface

WITH the hope that it will explain briefly the meaning of the Woman Suffrage Movement, this little book is offered. It is meant for the busy reader, who has not time for more than a short account of the struggle of women for political freedom, and ^ in no wise is it meant as a critical study, but c^ rather as a brief story of an interesting and ) vital phase of history.

^ The first six chapters were written origi-

V nally for The Chicago Stmdcty Tribune as an introduction to the story of Suffrage Move- ^ ment in Illinois. It had fallen to my lot to K present the cause of the suffragists of my I State and I saw no better way to begin the ' work than by showing the relation of the K various suffrage clubs and suffrage activities \ of the present to the struggles of the past for « liberty. The story of the Suffrage Movement was itself new to me when I began to

V vi PREFACE

write it; it was written somewhat hastily in newspaper style, for newspaper readers. When it was decided to enlarge these newspaper articles into a small book it seemed best to write the succeeding chapters in the same style in which the original ones were written.

Each chapter, therefore, commences with a dramatic incident, for I have endeavored to present history, not in the usual chronological order, but in a series of word pictures, sufficiently dramatic to arrest and hold the attention, leaving the reader with an array of pictorial impressions rather than a collection of facts. I have hoped, too, by this method, to interest the boys and girls of the nation in this, perhaps the greatest of all movements the world has ever seen. If then by means of what I have here hastily and imperfectly written there will be a better understanding of the meaning of " Votes for Women " in the widest and most comprehensive sense, my mission will have been accomplished.

B£LL£ Squibs.

Chicago,

Augtust^ 1911.

CX)NTENTS

CHAPmS VAOB

i cokcemkiko the doctbike of " the

Natural Ikfeekaitt of Wokak** 1

II The F1B8T Heboikes of a New World . 98

III WoMEK of the Retolution: Thet

Shared the Cost but kot the Gaik OF the Great Stbuoole ^ • . . .45

IV BEoiKKiira of the Womak's Rightb

Wokak's Rights Movement ... 79 VI The Effect of the Civil Wab and the

Constitutional Amendments ... 99 VII The Women Give Up Theib Cause to

FUBTHEB THAT OF THE SlAVE . . .114

VIII The Woman's War Begins Again:

IX The Gbeatest of Political Cbimes . » 151 X The Woman Movement Invades the

National Capital: Yeabs 1869-70 . 161 XI ViCTOBiA Woodhull Invades the

Woman Movement 179

XII The Movement Gets Into the Civil

and Cbiminal Coubts 194

XIII ^The Whiblwind of the Lobd" and

What Came of It 916

. .

Vll viii CONTENTS

OHAPTEB PAOB

XIV The Movemekt Fikds Chahpioks iv

THE Senate 339

XVI The Awabxnuto 353

XVII COUKTIKO THE GaINS 361

XVIII Into the New Cbntuet 370

XIX Looking Into the Futuee .... 381

LIST OF PORTRAITS

PAGE

Susan B. Anthony Frontispiece

Mary Wollstonecraft 19

Anne Hutchinson SO

Lucretia Mott 66

Frances Wright 70

Elizabeth Cady Stanton 89

Anna E. Dickinson 109

Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell 108

Lucy Stone 136

Matilda Joslyn Gage 164

Mrs. John Biddulph Martin, formerly Victoria Claflin Woodhull 174

Frances Willard 918

Belva A. Lockwood 949

Chapter I

DISGUISE it as jou may, hide it under whatever high-sounding titles you will, — ** chivalry,'' " expediency,'' " the order of nature," — the fact remains that at the bottom of the political, civil, and industrial disability of woman, and the whole opposition to grant her justice in this regard, lies the stubborn idea of her ^^ natural inferiority" to man, and his consequent dominion over her. ^ Because she is a woman " is the sum and substance of all the arguments against her claiming complete equality with the other half of the race to which she undoubtedly belongs, although even this has been disputed at times; for man in his overweening conceit has been guilty, in the past, of claiming that he, the male, was the race itself; woman, the female, being only the medium by which males were reproduced !

It was perhaps in the transient nature of things, or things as they seemed to be during the upward struggle of the race, that the idea of woman's natural inferiority sprang. It was perhaps inevitable; for, ignorant of the true function of sex, ignorant of the real meaning of such differentiation in the great moral design, which is only now beginning to be unrolled before our conscious eyes, man, the strong, restive, free, has by turns subjugated or fallen captive before woman, the weaker, tiie more passive^ the natural captive of nature itself.

He did not know, in that early day, that sex was the concomitant of all life on this globe of ours, pervading even the lowliest forms of plant and animal life ; that without sex there could be no progress, no development. He had .forgotten, if indeed he ever knew or realized it, the part that woman had played in the ages far behind them, that he

" INFERIORITY OP WOMAN "

had indeed usurped her superiority, claiming her inventions as his own, not understanding that she was the mother of industry, tiie mother of civilization, the great conservator of life and progress, the mother of humanity itself, without whose aid man never could have compassed human form nor generated human love, nor could he ever have known God, whatever Gk)d may be.

Ignorant, too, of the meaning of the bond by which he was bound to her; despising, glorifying, bewailing, belittling, or ridiculing the strength of the weakness which drew him to her, he has despised her, maltreated her, enslaved her, loved her, fled from her, hated her, cherished and sometimes worshipped her; and, in his supreme egoism, in the all-sufBciency of his own rights and his own reasoning, he conceived in the early days the idea that she was created expressly for him, for his use, his comfort, by an all-wise and beneficent God!

His other ideas, conceived at the same time, he has had to give up, for it has been proved, beyond even the shadow of a doubt, that the sun, moon, and stars were not created for his especial benefit, and as a matter of fact do not even belong to him, existing apparently in and for themselves and tike great system to which they belong, of which his world, so vast to his untutored eyes, is but a tiny, insignificant part, a grain of sand among the bowlders of the universe. As for his natural lordship over this world of ours, he has had to contend for every inch of it against nature herself, who, for the stubbornness with which she holds to her own convictions, might be suspected of belonging to tiie other sex.

Just when the idea of ^'woman's natural inferiority ^* was bom, is hard to say. It became a lusty brood, however, and like other pests, its chief concern has ever been the propagation of its species.

From the laws which have been enacted from time to time since history began, one would suspect that the chief concern of man. Church and State, has been to bolster up by force of some kind, civil, religious, or brute, his early conception of man's inherent and natural superiority to woman.

** INFERIORITY OF WOMAN "

With the progress of ciyillzationy and in spite of woman's natural advance as a rational creature along with him, man has clung tenaciously to his ancient idea of his own inherent superiority. Perhaps it was in the nature of things, or in tiie order of nature, that he usurped all sorts of authority, domestic, political, ecclesiastical, moral, and civil. In his superb conceit he designated the Creator of the universe as " Father," and limited the Great Unknown to his own sex ^ alone.

In his struggle to maintain his vaunted superiority, man has not been entirely logical in his reasoning. The Mosaic story of creation makes man — meaning male and female — the last product of the Creator, vegetation, fishes, birds, mammals, sun, moon, and stars preceding the advent of human creatures. Being made in the likeness of God, they were given, so the story runs, dominion over the earth and its hum-

iTIie Hebrew name Jehovah is said to have been originally a doubleHsexed word, meaning ** fathermother."

bier inhabitants; but the Mosaic account is conflicting and contradictory; all of which man and the theologians have turned to selfish account.

By authority of the first chapter of Genesis, man claims dominion and consequent superiority over the whole earth and its inhabitants because his kind, male and female, was made last and made in the image of the Creator ; yet by virtue of the second chapter, man claims superiority to woman because he was created first ! He is superior to the animal and vegetable worlds because his kind crowned the previous creation of their kinds ; the world and its inhabitants belong to him because they were created first. Yet he claims a superiority to the woman because she was an afterthought, at least so the story goes, and therefore was created for him, not he for her!

Man is indeed supreme, according to this reasoning. All that went before him belongs to him because it went before him; all that comes after belongs to him because it comes after. For him all things were made, without a doubt ! He is the, supreme and natural

•« INFERIORITY OP WOMAN -

ruler of the world, to question which were rankest heresy. As for woman, she should be content, as all ^' good " women have been, thus to be the companion of this favored of the gods, content to be at his continual service, to please him, cheer him, help him; for she exists not for herself, but for his comfort, his well-being, and his pleasure !

Such has been the burden of thought which has crushed woman and stultified her throughout the centuries, especially the ages dominated by Christian thought. In the main, with but few exceptions, she was denied the right to think; but so, too, was man. In many insidious ways, however, she was especially discouraged from mental action, and had been from the earliest times,^ Christian as well as pagan. For ages she was denied an education, except the most rudimentary, because it was not thought necessary for her to have one. It was not until the nineteenth century that it was even conceded by a few that she had a

i See I Cor. xiv, 34; I Tim. II, 11, 12, 15; Eph. v,

I right to an education, a right that was fought for as strenuously, and denied as emphatically, as her right to the ballot is in this. Strangely enough, the arguments used against granting woman the ballot are the very same ones used formerly against her having an education.

In the course of century upon century, society advanced from the simple community life of primitive times, and went through the various stages of gens, tribe, and nation. ■Governments were instituted. Society grew complex. The past grew mighty, and tradition ruled. That which had been was right, because it had existed of old. Priestcraft developed and wove a web of fantasy, precept, and morality into the lives of men and women, enchaining the minds of all with superstitious fear. Kings came into power and grew tyrannical. Whole peoples were often but the pawns of crafty, selfish rulers ; and the earth was drenched in blood to avenge a fancied insult, or to further the personal ambition of some mighty sovereign, who traced his ancestry back to heaven it-

«* INFERIORITY OF WOMAN "

self, and claimed to rule over his people by right divine, even as man ruled over woman by the same high authority.

Classes grew and multiplied, those who were above claiming also divine commission for their power, and ever demanding submission from those beneath. There were many grades of superiors and many grades of inferiors, but at the lowest depth was woman; for no man so low, no matter how mean a slave, but that some woman was lower still, a slave's slave, in very deed and truth.

Thus civilization, the outward semblance of it, with all its wealth and power, its cruelty and oppression, its growing, leavening thought, moved slowly on and expressed itself in a multitude of ways : — tribe, nation, empire; chieftain, king, emperor; democracy, aristocracy, republic ; freeman, master, slave ; lord, serf; monogamy, polyandry, polygamy, concubinage, and monogamy again, in outward form at least.

Everywhere there was a thirst for power, some imposition of authority, divine or human. Everywhere the human mind was chained, or an effort made to chain it; and allegiance was demanded from those below to some one or something above: to king, noble, priest; to lord, knight, master; to husband, father; to State, to Church. Women, likewise, as wives or daughters to those in power, demanded and received allegiance from those below by virtue of reflected glory.

In time, too, the Church grew powerful and demanded subjection from all alike, from the king down to the humblest peasant in the land; for as the State and the king ruled over things temporal, so the Church and the priest ruled over things eternal, and by divine authority held the keys to heaven and hell, while man ruled over woman, and none were free.

So it was that while woman, the creature of man's desire and the victim of nature, was mainly and of necessity concerned with tiie things of life, man, in his freer moments, began to concern himself with the things of the spirit. He would be free.

Little by little, through infinite pain and travail, in which the woman shared, then by leaps and bounds, his ideal grew into a

« INFERIORITY OP WOMAN *»

great desire. He flung away his kings, his priests, his traditions, and his chains. He would be free at any cost. He claimed his freedom by inherent right, by natural law, by reason's power. Liberty, equality, fraternity, for men as men, was what he claimed. Unfortunately, the most ardent champions of liberty ccmsidered women outside the pale.

By nature all men were created free and equaL They said it, preached it, wrote it, printed it. By nature woman was created for the use of man. She was his inferior, designed for other things than liberty — for instance, duty. This had been said so long a time, preached for so many centuries, printed, taught, written, tiiat in their leisure hours the apostles of liberty devised skilful and clever arguments, though scarcely logical, to prove the case. Man existed, they claimed, for his own ultimate satisfaction and develoinnent as a rational human being, and woman was created for the express purpose of aiding man's development as a rational being and increasing his satisfaction in life.

Such was the status of men and women as late as the eighteenth century. Such was

I the current thought while our nation was as yet a loose federation of colonies, subject to the control of England, the mother country.

It was Mary Wollstonecraft, a woman of Britain, who pricked this bubble of man's conceit, who tore off the veil of sentimentality from his alluring idea and showed it in all its hideous deformity and its debasing effects. She was not the first champion of her sex, but one of the stanchest, perhaps the most philosophical of them all. Her book, " A Vindication of the Rights of Woman," published in 1792, created a profound sensation. The American Declaration of Independence was an accomplished fact, the Revolution was now history, and the United States of America was a nation among the nations of the earth.

It had been a century of strenuous thoughts and great deeds. All were familiar with ideas of liberty. Conversation ran upon such ideas as these: inherent rights, rights of man, universal reason, law of nature, law of reason, natural rights. They talked about being " free bom,'' of " the

Mary WollstoiiecrHft

« INFERIORITY OF WOMAN "

sovereignty of the people," meaning always men people. Literature teemed with these ideas. Preachers preached them, teachers taught them.

They varied these high-sounding notions with notions about ** governments deriving their just powers from consent of the governed." They insisted upon coupling the right of taxation with that of representation, on the ground of " human rights." These, they claimed, were the natural rights of man.

Naturally, Mary Wollstonecraft*s book created a sensation. It was about the rights of woman and heretofore no one had considered much about woman except in regard to her ** duties." For the time being, her words fell on deaf ears. So far as our forefathers were concerned, great men though they were, they were not great enough to throw off the prejudice of centuries of thought, and in a country dedicated to freedom, a government erected on natural rights and founded on the equality of men as men, they entered upon their " birthright," refusing to erase the stigma of inferiority from the mothers who in pain and travail brought

IS forth the men who were by the law of nature, ** bom free and equal.''

Mary WoUstonecraft was not the only one who had espoused the cause of woman. There was one, ages ago, who spoke eloquently for her, advocating equal rights, equal opportunities for the sexes. He believed not only in the economic freedom of women, but also in free motherhood. His name was Plato.

It is maintained that Plato did not esteem highly the women of his time, for in the main he could not, but that he saw great possibilities in the sex. He realized that without the development and cooperation of women, the race was bound to deteriorate; but that with equal opportunities and equal development for men and women, an almost ideal society could evolve.

Since his time there have been others to champion the cause of woman. Cornelius Agrippa published in 1509 a work of some thirty chapters to prove the " superiority of woman." Half a century later, in 1662, another writer came to the same conclusion, and

« INFERIORITY OF WOMAN "

brought out a book based upon the philosophy of Plato. Still another near the end of the sixteenth century, 1599, went on record in favor of the sex of his mother and published a book with the imposing title, *^ A Woman's Worth defended against all the Men in the World, proving her to be more Perfect, Excellent, and Absolute, in All Virtuous Actions, than any man of What Quality Soever." ^

It is a philosophical maxim that a pendulum set in motion is bound to swing from one extreme to the other; so, while some were urging the superiority of women, others harked back to the gloomy past, and argued that women were beings not even endowed with reason. No longer could such insults go unchallenged, however, for the Renaissance had begun, and some women, at least, shared in the awakening of that magic time, and learned to use their pens to good effect in defence of their long-defamed sex.

The foremost literary country of Europe was Italy, where naturally there would be

1 Histoiy of Woman Suffrage. Stanton, Anthony, Gage; VoL I, Chap. I.

women of learning, if anywhere. George Eliot has given us a delightful picture of the cultured, scholarly woman of that time in her ** Romola," showing how easily and naturally such women might have been produced under the stimulus of overwhelming enthusiasm for knowledge as knowledge. One of these Italian women, Lucrezia Morinella of Venice, in the exuberance of her enthusiam, and perhaps to stem the flood of egoism which bid fair to overwhelm the opposite sex, wrote a work entitled, "The Nobleness and Excellence of Women, together with the Faults and Imperfections of Men." In view of the past, it is really strange there have not been more of such books written; for surely they are pardonable.

More proofs of the new age and better thought came also with the seventeenth century. The printing press was liberating human minds, breaking down tradition and superstition. Essays and books were written in defence of women, not only by those outside the Church, but by the clergy as well. A " History of Women *' and several large works upon the same general subject were produced by men, while Daniel Defoe so far anticipated the future as to wish an ** institute founded for the better education of young women." ^ In his own words :

" We reproach the sex every day for folly and impertinence^ while I am confident that had they the advantages of education equal to us^ they would be guilty of less than ourselves."

It is often claimed that the founder of Christianity, apart from religious conceptions, merits the gratitude of women for what he has done for them. Candor compels the honest conviction that much of the good he did personally was, and still is, nullified by the positive commands of his most noted follower, one Saul of Tarsus. Likewise Peter, in his teaching concerning the ** weaker vessel,** did much to exclude woman from the benefits of the doctrine of Jesus, summed up in the phrase ^^ the infinite value of man as man," which is supposed to be the original inspiration of the democratic

1 History of Woman Suffrage. Stanton, Anthony, Gage. Vcd. I, Chap. I.

8 17 ideal together with the idea of the ^ brotherhood of man " and the ^* fatherhood of God." Incalculable, though, is the mischief that has been caused by the story known as the ^* Fall of Man," a story more widely disseminated than was ever the Sermon on the Mount.

It was, no doubt, in the exaltation* of Mary, mother of Jesus, as ^ Queen of Heaven " and an object of adoration with her little son, that much was done indirectly for the elevation of her sex, and some of Paul's influence perhaps counteracted. Because of the idea of one sacred motherhood, gradually all motherhood is becoming sacred, in theory at least, and because of one sacred childhood, all childhood began to come into its own; but even yet it has not entirely arrived at that fair goal.

As an immediate result, however, romantic love was fostered and extravagant reverence was paid to young and beautiful women. The knight vowed not only eternal allegiance to his Lady in heaven, but eternal devotion to his own lady on earth. All womankind, indeed, or so at times we seem to read it, felt the softening influence of the ^^Lady in

"INFERIORITY OF WOMAN"

Heayen"; for with a gentle woman there, one who was also a tender mother, a kindly ^< Queen '' with whom one might plead for grace and special favors, and who was thought to answer such prayers personally, the whole sex shared somewhat in the reflected glory.

It is indeed to the credit of the Roman Church and the Greek as well, that along with the Son they exalted the Mother to godhead and heaven. None of the reform churches have done women this honor; instead, they have dragged the Mother down and left the Son in glory with his Father.

It was, therefore, mainly in a romantic way and by inference that this idea of Mary's semi-divinity reacted upon woman, for in spite of the "Mother of God" the churches still preach woman's inferiority, her natural impurity, even going so far as to refuse to allow her to take the eucharist in her naked hands, because of her "uncleanness." She was never allowed to forget the ** curse of Eve," though "Adam's curse" was seldom mentioned, for it was held that there was a new dispensation where man was concerned. Nor was the severity of the canon and the civil law lessened, which discriminated most unjustly against the sex of the " Mother of God.*' They did not stop to reason that if, according to their doctrine, **by woman sin came into the world," by woman also came God into the world.

They cursed all women for the sake of the fiin of one; why did not they forgive and honor all women for the sake of the service of the other? If, too, Jesus, the " Son of Man," was the " new Adam," bringing in a new dispensation for all mankind, then why should not Mary have been the " new Eve," bringing in a new dispensation for all womankind? One has but to read the laws that have disgraced Christendom to learn that even to this day the curse of Eve is still in operation against her daughters, except in the few places where equal rights prevail.^

Nor was chivalry, which in a way grew out of the idea of the divinity of Mary, incom-

iSee ''Mr. Lex," by Catharine Waug^ McCuIloch, for examples of Illinois law regarding women. Pub- Ushed, 1899.

•* INFERIORITY OF WOMAN "

patible with highly divergent ideals; for the knight as lord, even while honoring his lady, had ** rights " ^ which even the humblest virgin and the villain's bride dared not disallow. But though the pages of history are stained with the foulest crimes against woman, the leavening was at work ; for if we stm share the curse of Eve, we also in a way share the diadem af Mary, and childhood reaps to-day the good fruits of the little Son.

It was women mainly who spread the faith of the Nazarene. If, then, Christianity be the salvation of the world, women have helped largely to purchase that salvation; and it is the irony of fate that in the face of this fact the clergy of the Christian Church have ever been the bitterest opponents of freedom for the daughters of Mother Eve.

When persecutions raged, the sex of women but made their lot the harder. They, too, were put to the sword, thrown to wild

& Known as "Marquette" Sec ** Woman, Churdi, and State*** by Matilda Josljm Gage.

I beasts, or burned with fire as living torches to grace a Nero's feast, but not until they were despoiled of chastity, — a fate for Christian maids and matrons worse than death itself.

The blood of martyrs is the seed of the Church, so the Church grew strong and powerful, but never once was it so much as hinted that the crime of Adam's wife, if crime it was, could be washed away in the blood shed by her daughters that the Church the Redeemer might live and prosper through the ages. The burden laid by the Church upon the frail shoulders of woman was heavy indeed.

With the Reformation, the grasp of the Church upon her was loosened, and liberty became something more than a dream when at last freedom of thought and conscience was proclaimed. Nor was all the blood shed by men alone in that tempestuous and fateful time; women also paid the penalty of death, and paid it willingly in order to be free. If, in the long ago, one of the sex did err, have not her daughters paid the debt in full with blood and tears and shame? What

« INFERIORITY OF WOMAN "

more is needed? In justice, who dares to ask for more?

In striving for the honor of martyrdom it seems sex is no bar to the honors, no handicap. In the arena of death, men do not press the question of the superiority of their kind, nor have they ever contended that there woman was out of her divinely appointed sphere. Upon that platform she has never been denied admission; and thus is itproved that women, as well as men, have died gloriously for freedom's sake.

Men as kings were thought to be the only rightful rulers, designed by nature herself for such high office, yet in a dearth of royal men, women became queens in their own right, and proved themselves as capable as kings. Among these queens were Cleopatra of Egypt, Boadicea, the warrior queen of the Britons, Olga and Catherine the Great of Russia, Maria Theresa of Austria-Hungary, Mary Stuart of Scotland, Anne, Victoria and Elizabeth, the great " virgin queen," of England, all of whom showed a genius for the role.

In his book "The Subjection of Women,'* John Stuart Mill proved conclusively that the very thing from which women are most shut out ordinarily — government and governing — was the very thing for which apparently they were most fitted and for which they had the greatest genius. By numerous examples he proved that women In supreme power were more successful as a rule than men. Their reigns were usually marked by great progress in the peaceful arts and the well-being of their subjects. They seemed Intuitively to choose wise men to help them in their councils. It can scarcely be said of male monarchs that such Is usually the case, or that they have a gift for choosing the wisest women to help them guide the ship of state. By Inference it may be assumed that that government is best which unites the wisdom of women with the wisdom of men.