<h2><SPAN name="Page_234"></SPAN>CHAPTER XV.</h2>
<h2>WOMEN AS PATRIOTS.</h2>
<br/>
<p>On April 15, 1861, the President of the United States
called out seventy-five thousand militia, and summoned
Congress to meet July 4, when four hundred thousand
men were called for, and four hundred millions of dollars
were voted to suppress the Rebellion.</p>
<p>These startling events roused the entire people, and
turned the current of their thoughts in new directions.
While the nation's life hung in the balance, and the
dread artillery of war drowned, alike, the voices of commerce,
politics, religion, and reform, all hearts were
filled with anxious forebodings, all hands were busy in
solemn preparations for the awful tragedies to come.</p>
<p>At this eventful hour the patriotism of woman shone
forth as fervently and spontaneously as did that of man;
and her self-sacrifice and devotion were displayed in as
many varied fields of action. While he buckled on his
knapsack and marched forth to conquer the enemy, she
planned the campaigns which brought the nation victory;
fought in the ranks, when she could do so without
detection; inspired the sanitary commission; gathered
needed supplies for the grand army; provided nurses
for the hospitals; comforted the sick; smoothed the pillows
of the dying; inscribed the last messages of lave
to those far away; and marked the resting places where
the brave men fell. The labor women accomplished,
<SPAN name="Page_235"></SPAN>the hardships they endured, the time and
strength they
sacrificed in the War that summoned three million men
to arms, can never be fully appreciated.</p>
<p>Indeed, we may safely say that there is scarcely a
loyal woman in the North who did not do something in
aid of the cause; who did not contribute time, labor, and
money to the comfort of our soldiers and the success
of our arms. The story of the War will never be fully
written if the achievements of women are left untold.
They do not figure in the official reports; they
are not gazetted for gallant deeds; the names of thousands
are unknown beyond the neighborhood where
they lived, or the hospitals where they loved to labor;
yet there is no feature in our War more creditable to us
as a nation, none from its positive newness so well
worthy of record.</p>
<p>While the mass of women never philosophize on the
principles that underlie national existence, there were
those in our late War who understood the political significance
of the struggle; the "irrepressible conflict"
between freedom and slavery, between National and
State rights. They saw that to provide lint, bandages,
and supplies for the army, while the War was not conducted
on a wise policy, was to labor in vain; and while
many organizations, active, vigilant, and self-sacrificing,
were multiplied to look after the material wants of the
army, these few formed themselves into a National Loyal
League, to teach sound principles of government and
to impress on the nation's conscience that freedom for
the slaves was the only way to victory. Accustomed,
as most women had been to works of charity and to the
relief of outward suffering, it was difficult to rouse their
enthusiasm for an idea, to persuade them to labor for
<SPAN name="Page_236"></SPAN>a principle. They clamored for practical work,
something
for their hands to do; for fairs and sewing societies
to raise money for soldier's families, for tableaux, readings,
theatricals—anything but conventions to discuss
principles and to circulate petitions for emancipation.
They could not see that the best service they could
render the army was to suppress the Rebellion, and that
the most effective way to accomplish that was to transform
the slaves into soldiers. This Woman's Loyal
League voiced the solemn lessons of the War: Liberty
to all; national protection for every citizen under our
flag; universal suffrage, and universal amnesty.</p>
<p>After consultation with Horace Greeley, William
Lloyd Garrison, Governor Andrews, and Robert Dale
Owen, Miss Anthony and I decided to call a meeting of
women in Cooper Institute and form a Woman's Loyal
League, to advocate the immediate emancipation and
enfranchisement of the Southern slaves, as the most
speedy way of ending the War, so we issued, in tract
form, and extensively circulated the following call:</p>
<div class="blkquot">
<p>"In this crisis of our country's destiny, it is the duty
of every citizen to consider the peculiar blessings of a
republican form of government, and decide what sacrifices
of wealth and life are demanded for its defense and
preservation. The policy of the War, our whole future
life, depend on a clearly defined idea of the end proposed
and the immense advantages to be secured to
ourselves and all mankind by its accomplishment. No
mere party or sectional cry, no technicalities of constitutional
or military law, no mottoes of craft or policy are
big enough to touch the great heart of a nation in the
midst of revolution. A grand idea—such as freedom
<SPAN name="Page_237"></SPAN>or justice—is needful to kindle and sustain the
fires of
a high enthusiasm.</p>
<p>"At this hour, the best word and work of every man
and woman are imperatively demanded. To man, by
common consent, are assigned the forum, camp, and
field. What is woman's legitimate work and how she
may best accomplish it, is worthy our earnest counsel
one with another. We have heard many complaints of
the lack of enthusiasm, among Northern women; but
when a mother lays her son on the altar of her country,
she asks an object equal to the sacrifice. In nursing the
sick and wounded, knitting socks, scraping lint, and
making jellies the bravest and best may weary if the
thoughts mount not in faith to something beyond and
above it all. Work is worship only when a noble purpose
fills the soul. Woman is equally interested and
responsible with man in the final settlement of this
problem of self-government; therefore let none stand
idle spectators now. When every hour is big with
destiny, and each delay but complicates our difficulties,
it is high time for the daughters of the Revolution, in
solemn council, to unseal the last will and testaments of
the fathers, lay hold of their birthright of freedom, and
keep it a sacred trust for all coming generations.</p>
<p>"To this end we ask the Loyal Women of the Nation
to meet in the Church of the Puritans (Dr. Cheever's),
New York, on Thursday, the 14th of May next.</p>
<p>"Let the women of every State be largely represented
in person or by letter.</p>
<p style="margin-left: 40px;">"On behalf of the Woman's Central
Committee,</p>
<p style="margin-left: 80px;">"Elizabeth Cady Stanton,<br/>
"Susan B. Anthony."</p>
</div>
<p><SPAN name="Page_238"></SPAN>Among other resolutions adopted at the
meeting
were the following:</p>
<div class="blkquot">
<p>"<i>Resolved</i>, There never can be a true peace in this
Republic until the civil and political rights of all citizens
of African descent and all women are practically
established.</p>
<p>"<i>Resolved</i>, That the women of the Revolution were
not wanting in heroism and self-sacrifice, and we, their
daughters, are ready, in this War, to pledge our time,
our means, our talents, and our lives, if need be, to
secure the final and complete consecration of America
to freedom."</p>
</div>
<p>It was agreed that the practical work to be done to
secure freedom for the slaves was to circulate petitions
through all the Northern States. For months these
petitions were circulated diligently everywhere, as the
signatures show—some signed on fence posts, plows,
the anvil, the shoemaker's bench—by women of
fashion and those in the industries, alike in the parlor
and the kitchen; by statesmen, professors in colleges,
editors, bishops; by sailors, and soldiers, and
the hard-handed children of toil, building railroads and
bridges, and digging canals, and in mines in the bowels
of the earth. Petitions, signed by three hundred thousand
persons, can now be seen in the national archives
in the Capitol at Washington. Three of my sons spent
weeks in our office in Cooper Institute, rolling up the
petitions from each State separately, and inscribing on
the outside the number of names of men and women
contained therein. We sent appeals to the President
the House of Representatives, and the Senate, from
time to time, urging emancipation and the passage of
<SPAN name="Page_239"></SPAN>the proposed Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and
Fifteenth
Amendments to the National Constitution. During
these eventful months we received many letters from
Senator Sumner, saying, "Send on the petitions as fast
as received; they give me opportunities for speech."</p>
<p>Robert Dale Owen, chairman of the Freedman's
Commission, was most enthusiastic in the work of the
Loyal League, and came to our rooms frequently to
suggest new modes of agitation and to give us an inkling
of what was going on behind the scenes in Washington.
Those who had been specially engaged in the
Woman Suffrage movement suspended their conventions
during the war, and gave their time and thought
wholly to the vital issues of the hour. Seeing the political
significance of the war, they urged the emancipation
of the slaves as the sure, quick way of cutting the
Gordian knot of the Rebellion. To this end they
organized a national league, and rolled up a mammoth
petition, urging Congress so to amend the Constitution
as to prohibit the existence of slavery in the United
States. From their headquarters in Cooper Institute,
New York city, they sent out the appeals to the President,
Congress, and the people at large; tracts and
forms of petition, franked by members of Congress, were
scattered like snowflakes from Maine to Texas. Meetings
were held every week, in which the policy of the
Government was freely discussed, and approved or condemned.</p>
<p>That this League did a timely educational work is
manifested by the letters received from generals, statesmen,
editors, and from women in most of the Northern
States, fully indorsing its action and principles. The
clearness to thinking women of the cause of the War;
<SPAN name="Page_240"></SPAN>the true policy in waging it; their
steadfastness in
maintaining the principles of freedom, are worthy of
consideration. With this League abolitionists and Republicans
heartily co-operated. A course of lectures
was delivered for its benefit in Cooper Institute, by
such men as Horace Greeley, George William Curtis,
William D. Kelly, Wendell Phillips, E.P. Whipple,
Frederick Douglass, Theodore D. Weld, Rev. Dr.
Tyng, and Dr. Bellows. Many letters are on its
files from Charles Sumner, approving its measures,
and expressing great satisfaction at the large number
of emancipation petitions being rolled into
Congress. The Republican press, too, was highly
complimentary. The New York Tribune said: "The
women of the Loyal League have shown great practical
wisdom in restricting their efforts to one subject,
the most important which any society can aim at
in this hour, and great courage in undertaking to do
what never has been done in the world before, to obtain
one million of names to a petition."</p>
<p>The leading journals vied with each other in praising
the patience and prudence, the executive ability, the
loyalty, and the patriotism of the women of the League,
and yet these were the same women who, when demanding
civil and political rights, privileges, and immunities
for themselves, had been uniformly denounced as "unwise,"
"imprudent," "fanatical," and "impracticable."
During the six years they held their own claims in
abeyance to those of the slaves of the South, and
labored to inspire the people with enthusiasm for the
great measures of the Republican party, they were
highly honored as "wise, loyal, and clear-sighted." But
when the slaves were emancipated, and these women
<SPAN name="Page_241"></SPAN>asked that they should be recognized in the
reconstruction
as citizens of the Republic, equal before the law, all
these transcendent virtues vanished like dew before the
morning sun. And thus it ever is: so long as woman
labors to second man's endeavors and exalt his sex above
her own, her virtues pass unquestioned; but when she
dares to demand rights and privileges for herself, her
motives, manners, dress, personal appearance, and character
are subjects for ridicule and detraction.</p>
<p>Liberty, victorious over slavery on the battlefield, had
now more powerful enemies to encounter at Washington.
The slaves set free, the master conquered, the
South desolate; the two races standing face to face,
sharing alike the sad results of war, turned with appealing
looks to the general government, as if to say,
"How stand we now?" "What next?" Questions
our statesmen, beset with dangers, with fears for the
nation's life, of party divisions, of personal defeat, were
wholly unprepared to answer. The reconstruction of
the South involved the reconsideration of the fundamental
principles of our Government and the natural
rights of man. The nation's heart was thrilled with
prolonged debates in Congress and State legislatures,
in the pulpits and public journals, and at every fireside
on these vital questions, which took final shape in the
three historic amendments to the Constitution.</p>
<p>The first point, his emancipation, settled, the political
status of the negro was next in order; and to this end
various propositions were submitted to Congress. But
to demand his enfranchisement on the broad principle
of natural rights was hedged about with difficulties, as
the logical result of such action must be the enfranchisement
of all ostracized classes; not only the white
<SPAN name="Page_242"></SPAN>women of the entire country, but the slave women
of
the South. Though our senators and representatives
had an honest aversion to any proscriptive legislation
against loyal women, in view of their varied and self-sacrificing
work during the War, yet the only way they
could open the constitutional door just wide enough to
let the black man pass in was to introduce the word
"male" into the national Constitution. After the
generous devotion of such women as Anna Carroll and
Anna Dickinson in sustaining the policy of the Republicans,
both in peace and war, they felt it would come
with a bad grace from that party to place new barriers
in woman's path to freedom. But how could the
amendment be written without the word "male," was
the question.</p>
<p>Robert Dale Owen being at Washington, and behind
the scenes at the time, sent copies of the various bills
to the officers of the Loyal League, in New York, and
related to us some of the amusing discussions. One of
the committee proposed "persons" instead of "males."
"That will never do," said another, "it would enfranchise
wenches." "Suffrage for black men will be all
the strain the Republican party can stand," said another.
Charles Sumner said, years afterward, that he
wrote over nineteen pages of foolscap to get rid of the
word "male" and yet keep "negro suffrage" as a
party measure intact; but it could not be done.</p>
<p>Miss Anthony and I were the first to see the full significance
of the word "male" in the Fourteenth
Amendment, and we at once sounded the alarm, and
sent out petitions for a constitutional amendment to
"prohibit the States from disfranchising any of their
citizens on the ground of sex." Miss Anthony, who
<SPAN name="Page_243"></SPAN>had spent the year in Kansas, started for New
York the
moment she saw the proposition before Congress to put
the word "male" into the national Constitution, and
made haste to rouse the women in the East to the fact
that the time had come to begin vigorous work again
for woman's enfranchisement.</p>
<p>Leaving Rochester, October 11, she called on Martha
Wright at Auburn; Phebe Jones and Lydia Mott at
Albany; Mmes. Rose, Gibbons, Davis, at New York
city; Lucy Stone and Antoinette Brown Blackwell in
New Jersey; Stephen and Abby Foster at Worcester;
Mmes. Severance, Dall, Nowell, Dr. Harriet K. Hunt,
Dr. M.E. Zackesewska, and Messrs. Phillips and Garrison
in Boston, urging them to join in sending protests
to Washington against the pending legislation. Mr.
Phillips at once consented to devote five hundred dollars
from the "Jackson Fund" to commence the work.
Miss Anthony and I spent all our Christmas holidays
in writing letters and addressing appeals and petitions
to every part of the country, and, before the close of
the session of 1865-66, petitions with ten thousand signatures
were poured into Congress.</p>
<p>One of my letters was as follows:</p>
<div class="blkquot">
<p>"<i>To the Editor of the Standard</i>:</p>
<p>"Sir: Mr. Broomall of Pennsylvania, Mr. Schenck of
Ohio, Mr. Jenckes of Rhode Island, and Mr. Stevens
of Pennsylvania, have each a resolution before Congress
to amend the Constitution.</p>
<p>"Article First, Section Second, reads thus: 'Representatives
and direct taxes shall be apportioned among
the several States which may be included within this
Union, according to their respective numbers.'</p>
<p>"<SPAN name="Page_244"></SPAN>Mr. Broomall proposes to amend by saying,
'male
electors'; Mr. Schenck,'male citizens'; Mr. Jenckes,
'male citizens'; Mr. Stevens, 'male voters,' as, in process
of time, women may be made 'legal voters' in
the several States, and would then meet that requirement
of the Constitution. But those urged by the
other gentlemen, neither time, effort, nor State Constitutions
could enable us to meet, unless, by a liberal interpretation
of the amendment, a coat of mail to be worn
at the polls might be judged all-sufficient. Mr. Jenckes
and Mr. Schenck, in their bills, have the grace not to say
a word about taxes, remembering, perhaps, that 'taxation
without representation is tyranny.' But Mr.
Broomall, though unwilling that we should share in the
honors of government, would fain secure us a place in
its burdens; for, while he apportions representatives to
"male electors" only, he admits "all the inhabitants"
into the rights, privileges, and immunities of taxation.
Magnanimous M.C.!</p>
<p>"I would call the attention of the women of the
nation to the fact that, under the Federal Constitution,
as it now exists, there is not one word that limits the
right of suffrage to any privileged class. This attempt
to turn the wheels of civilization backward, on the part
of Republicans claiming to be the liberal party, should
rouse every woman in the nation to a prompt exercise
of the only right she has in the Government, the right
of petition. To this end a committee in New York
have sent out thousands of petitions, which should be
circulated in every district and sent to its representative
at Washington as soon as possible.</p>
<p style="margin-left: 40px;">"Elizabeth Cady Stanton.</p>
<p style="margin-left: 80px;">"New York, January 2, 1866."</p>
</div>
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