History of Woman Suffrage/Volume 3/Chapter 32
CHAPTER XXXII.
CONNECTICUT.
Prudence Crandall—Eloquent Reformers—Petitions for Suffrage—The Committee's Report—Frances Ellen Burr—Isabella Beecher Hooker's Reminiscences—Anna Dickinson in the Republican Campaign—State Society Formed, October 28, 29, 1869—Enthusiastic Convention in Hartford—Governor Marshall Jewell—He Recommends More Liberal Laws for Women—Society Formed in New Haven, 1871—Governor Hubbard's Inaugural, 1877—Samuel Bowles of the Springfield Republican—Rev. Phebe A. Hanaford, Chaplain, 1870—John Hooker, esq., Champions the Suffrage Movement.
While Connecticut has always been celebrated for its puritanical theology, political conservatism and rigid social customs, it was nevertheless the scene of some of the most hotly contested of the anti-slavery battles. While its leading clergymen and statesmen stoutly maintained the letter of the old creeds and constitutions, the Burleighs, the Mays, and the Crandalls strove to illustrate the true spirit of religion and republicanism in their daily lives by "remembering those that were in bonds as bound with them."
The example of one glorious woman like Prudence Crandall,[1] who suffered shameful persecutions in establishing a school for colored girls at Canterbury, in 1833, should have been sufficient to rouse every woman in Connecticut to some thought on the basic principles of the government and religion of the country. Yet we have no record of any woman in that State publicly sustaining her in that grand enterprise, though no doubt her heroism gave fresh inspiration to the sermons of Samuel J. May, then preaching in the village of Brooklyn, and the speeches and poems of the two eloquent reformers, Charles C. and William H. Burleigh. The words and deeds of these and other great souls, though seeming to slumber for many years, gave birth at last to new demands for another class of outraged citizens. Thus liberty is ever born of the hateful spirit of persecution. One question of reform settled forever by the civil war, the initiative for the next was soon taken. In The Revolution of January 16, 1868, we find the following well-considered report on woman's enfranchisement, presented by a minority of the Committee on Constitutional Amendments to the legislature of Connecticut at its session of 1867:
The undersigned members of the committee believe that the prayer of the petitioners ought to be granted. It would be much easier for us to reject the petition and silently to acquiesce in the opinions of the majority upon the subject to which it relates, but our attention was challenged and an investigation invited by the bold axioms upon which the cause of suffrage for woman was claimed to rest, and the more we have examined the subject the more convinced we have become that the logic of our institutions requires a concession of that right. It is claimed by some that the right to vote is not a natural right, but that it is a privilege which some have acquired, and which may be granted to others at the option of the fortunate holders. But they fail to inform us how the possessors first acquired the privilege, and especially how they acquired the rightful power to withhold that privilege from others, according to caprice or notions of expediency. We hold this doctrine to be pernicious in tendency, and hostile to the spirit of a republican government; and we believe that it can only be justified by the same arguments that are used to justify slavery or monarchy—for it is an obvious deduction of logic that if one thousand persons have a right to govern another thousand without their consent, one man has a right to govern all.
Mr. Lincoln tersely said, "If slavery is not wrong nothing is wrong." So it seems to us that if the right to vote is not a natural right, there is no such thing as a natural right in human relations. The right to freedom and the right to a ballot both spring from the same source. The right to vote is only the right to a legitimate use of freedom. It is plain that if a man is not free to govern himself, and to have a voice in the taxation of his own property, he is not really free in any enlightened sense. Even Edward I. of England said, "It is a most equitable rule that what concerns all should be approved by all." This must rightfully apply to women the same as to men. And Locke, in his essay on civil government, said, "Nothing is more evident than that creatures of the same species and rank, promiscuously born to the same advantages of nature, and the use of the same faculties, should also be equal, one with another, without subordination or subjection." Talleyrand said, as an argument for monarchy, "The moment we reject an absolutely universal suffrage, we admit the principle of aristocracy." The founders of this nation asserted with great emphasis and every variety of repetition, the essential equality of human rights as a self-evident truth. The war of the Revolution was justified by the maxim, "Taxation without representation is tyranny"; and all republics vindicate their existence by the claim that "Governments derive their just power from the consent of the governed." Yet woman, in Connecticut, is governed without her consent, and taxed without representation.
Lord Camden, one of England's ablest jurists, long ago declared, "My position is this—taxation and representation are inseparable. The position is founded in a law of nature—nay more, it is itself an eternal law of nature." Our forefathers held to this principle, and fought seven years to establish it. They maintained their favorite theory of government against immense odds, and transmitted to their posterity the great work of putting it logically into practice. It is acknowledged by this legislature that "taxation without representation is tyranny," and that "governments derive their just power from the consent of the governed." If these phrases are anything more than the meaningless utterances of demagogues, anything more than the hypocritical apologies of rebellious colonies in a strait—then we submit that a primâ facie case for woman's right to vote has already been made out. To declare that a voice in the government is the right of all, and then give it to less than half, and that to the fraction to which the theorist himself happens to belong, is to renounce even the appearance of principle.
It is plain to your committee that neither the State nor the nation can have peace on this suffrage question until some fair standard shall be adopted which is not based on religion, or color, or sex, or any accident of birth—a test which shall be applicable to every adult human being. In a republic the ballot belongs to every intelligent adult person who is innocent of crime. There is an obvious and sufficient reason for excluding minors, state-prison convicts, imbeciles and insane persons, but does the public safety require that we shall place the women of Connecticut with infants, criminals, idiots and lunatics? Do they deserve the classification? It seems to your committee that to enfranchise woman—or rather to cease to deprive her of the ballot, which is of right hers, would be reciprocally beneficial. We believe that it would elevate the character of our office-holders; that it would purify our politics; that it would render our laws more equitable; that it would give to woman a protection against half the perils which now beset her; that it would put into her hands a key that would unlock the door of every respectable occupation and profession; that it would insure a reconstruction of our statute laws on a basis of justice, so that a woman should have a right to her own children, and a right to receive and enjoy the proceeds of her own labor. John Neal estimates that the ballot is worth fifty cents a day to every American laborer, enabling each man to command that much higher wages. Does not gentlemanly courtesy, as well as equal justice, require that that weapon of defense shall be given to those thousands of working women among us who are going down to prostitution through three or four half-paid, over-crowded occupations?
It is said that woman is now represented by her husband, when she has one; but what is this representation worth when in Connecticut, two years ago, all of the married woman's personal property became absolutely her husband's, including even her bridal presents, to sell or give away, as he saw fit—a statute which still prevails in most of the States? What is that representation worth when even now, in this State, no married woman has the right to the use of her own property, and no woman, even a widow, is the natural guardian of her own children? Even in Connecticut, under man's representation, a widow whose husband dies without a will is regarded by law as an encumbrance on the estate which she, through years of drudgery, has helped to acquire. She can inherit none of the houses or land, but has merely the use of one-third, while the balance goes to his relatives—rich, perhaps, and persons whom she never saw. Does not this suggest reasons why woman should wish to represent herself?
It is said that women do not desire the ballot. This is by no means certain. It can be ascertained only by taking a vote. It is not proved by the fact that they have not yet generally clamored for the right, nor by the fact that some protest against it. In Persia, it is a law of society that virtuous women shall appear in public with their faces covered, and instead of murmuring at the restraint, they are universal in upholding it, and wonder at the immodesty and effrontery of English women who appear upon the streets unveiled. Custom hardens us to any kind of degradation. When woman was not admitted to the dinner-table as an equal with man, she undoubtedly thought the exclusion was perfectly proper, and quite in the nature of things, and the dinner-table became vile and obscene. When she was forbidden to enter the church, she approved the arrangement, and the church became a scene of hilarity and bacchanalian revel. When she was forbidden to take part in literature, she thought it was not her sphere, and disdained the alphabet, and the consequence was that literature became unspeakably impure, so that no man can now read in public some of the books that were written before woman brought chastity and refinement into letters. The Asiatics are probably not in favor of political liberty, or the American Indians in favor of civilization; but that does not prove that these would be bad for them, especially if thousands of the most enlightened did desire and demand the change. It is assumed that women are not in favor of this right; how can this be better ascertained than by submitting to them the question to vote upon—"yes" or "no." If this legislature shall be averse to trusting woman to give her opinion even on the question of her own enfranchisement, we recommend that an amendment, striking the word "male" from the State constitution, be submitted to the qualified electors of the State. Can there be any possible danger in trusting those who have trusted us? They, not we, are the law-makers. An assembly is elected only because it would be inconvenient for all the citizens to vote upon every statute. But when any change in the fundamental law is seriously asked, it should be remitted to the people without hesitation, especially when that proposed change will render our logic consistent, and our institutions harmonious; when it will enforce the democratic doctrine that, in society, every human being has a right to do anything that does not interfere with the rights of others, and when it will establish equality in place of partiality, and vindicate the principle of All Rights for All. We therefore recommend the adoption of the following resolution: [Here follows a resolution submitting to the people an amendment of the constitution giving women the right to vote equally with men.]
The members of the committee who signed this early declaration in favor of the rights of women should be remembered with honor. They are Henry Ashley, William Steele and J. D. Gallup, jr. The resolution recommended received 93 votes in the House of Representatives, against 111 in opposition. So strong an expression in favor of it at that time is a noteworthy fact in the history of the cause.
The petitions that called out this able report were secured through the influence of Frances Ellen Burr, who may be said to have been the pioneer of woman suffrage in Connecticut. She had made several attempts, through conversations with influential friends, to organize a State society many years before. From the inauguration of the State association until the present time Miss Burr has been one of its most efficient members, and has done more to popularize the question of woman suffrage throughout the State than any other person. Her accomplishments as a writer and speaker, as a reporter and stenographer, as well as her connection with the Hartford Times (a journal that has a very large circulation in the State), edited by her brother, have qualified her for wide and efficient influence. Her niece, Mrs. Ella Burr McManus, edits a column in that paper, under the head of "Social Notes." She is also an advocate of suffrage for women, and makes telling points, from week to week, on this question. In issuing the first numbers of The Revolution, the earliest words of good cheer came from Frances Ellen Burr.[2]
The general rebellion among women against the old conditions of society and the popular opinions as to their nature and destiny, has been organized in each State in this Union by the sudden awakening of some self-reliant woman, in whose soul had long slumbered new ideas as to her rights and duties, growing out of personal experiences or the distant echoes of onward steps in other localities. In Connecticut this woman was Isabella Beecher Hooker, who had scarcely dared to think, and much less to give shape in words, to the thoughts that, like unwelcome ghosts, had haunted her hours of solitude from year to year. Elizabeth Barrett Browning describes a hero as one who does what others do but say; who says what others do but think; and thinks what others do but dream. The successive steps by which Mrs. Hooker's dreams at last took shape in thoughts, words and actions, and brought her to the woman suffrage platform, are well told by herself:
My mind had long been disturbed with the tangled problem of social life, but it involved so many momentous questions that I could not see where to begin nor what to do. I could only protest in my heart, and leave the whole matter for God[3]to deal with in his wisdom. Thus matters stood until the year 1861, when Anna Dickinson, then a girl of nineteen, came to Hartford to speak in behalf of the Republican party, particularly on its hostility to the extension of slavery. I shall never forget the dismay—I know not what else to call it—which I felt at the announcement of her first speech in one of our public halls, lest harm should come to the political cause that enlisted my sympathies, and anxiety about the speaker, who would have to encounter so much adverse criticism in our conservative and prejudiced city. It was certainly a most startling occurrence, that here in my very home, where there had been hardly a lisp in favor of the rights of women, this girl should speak on political subjects, and that, too, upon the invitation of the leaders of a great political party. Here was a stride, not a mere step; and a stride almost to final victory for the suppressed rights of women.
My husband and I, full of anxiety and apprehension, but full, too, of determination to stand by one who so bravely shook off her trammels, went to hear this new Joan of Arc, and in a few minutes after she began we found ourselves, with the rest of the large audience, entranced by her eloquence. At the close of the meeting we went with many others to be introduced and give her the right hand of fellowship. She came home with us for the night, and after the family retired she and I communed together, heart to heart, as mother and daughter, and from this sweet, grand soul, born to the freedom denied to all women except those known as Quakers, I learned to trust as never before the teachings of the inner light, and to know whence came to them the recognition of equal rights with their brethren in the public assembly.
It was she who brought me to the knowledge of Mrs. John Stuart Mill, and her remarkable paper on "The Enfranchisement of Women," in The Westminster Review. She told me, too, of Susan B. Anthony, a fearless defender of true liberty and woman's right of public speech; but I allowed an old and ignorant prejudice against her and Mrs. Stanton to remain until the year 1864, when, going South to nurse a young soldier who was wounded in the war, I met Mrs. Caroline Severance from Boston, who was residing in South Carolina, where her husband was in the service of the government, who confirmed what Miss Dickinson had told me of Miss Anthony, and unfolded to me the whole philosophy of the woman suffrage movement.
She afterwards invited me to her home near Boston, where I joined Mr. Garrison and others in issuing a call for a convention, which I attended, and aided in the formation of the New England Woman Suffrage Association. At this meeting, which I will not attempt to describe, I met Paulina Wright Davis, whose mere presence upon the platform, with her beautiful white hair and her remarkable dignity and elegance, was a most potent argument in favor of woman's participation in public affairs. I sought an introduction to her, and confessing my prejudice against Mrs. Stanton and Miss Anthony, whom I had never yet seen, she urged me to meet them as guests at her home in Providence; and a few weeks later, under the grand old trees of her husband's almost ducal estate, we went over the whole subject of man's supremacy and woman's subjection that had lain so many years a burden upon my heart, and, sitting at their feet, I said: "While I have been mourning in secret over the degradation of woman, you have been working, through opposition and obloquy, to raise her to self-respect and self-protection through enfranchisement, knowing that with equal political rights come equal social and industrial opportunities. Henceforth, I will at least share your work and your obloquy."
In September, 1869, just one year from that time, after spending several weeks in correspondence with friends all over the State, and making careful preliminary arrangements, I issued a call for the first woman suffrage convention that was ever held in Connecticut, at which a State society was formed. To my surprise and satisfaction, the city press each day devoted several columns to reports of our proceedings, and the enthusiasm manifested by the large audiences was as unexpected as it was gratifying. The speakers were worthy of the reception given them, and few occasions have gathered upon one platform so notable an assemblage of men and women.[4]The resolutions which formed the basis of the discussions were prepared and presented by Mr. Hooker:
Resolved, That there is no consideration whatever that makes the right of suffrage valuable to men, or that makes it the duty or the interest of the nation to concede it to men, that does not make it valuable to women, and the duty and interest of the nation to concede it to women.
Resolved, That the ballot will bring to woman a higher education, larger industrial opportunities, a wider field for thought and action, a sense of responsibility in her relations lations to the public welfare, and, in place of mere complaisance and flattery, the higher and truer respect of men.
Resolved, That political affairs, involving nearly all those questions that relate to the welfare of the nation and the progress of society towards a perfect Christian civilization, ought to interest deeply every intelligent mind and every patriotic heart; and, while women love their country and the cause of Christian progress no less than men, they ought to have the same opportunity with men to exert a political power in their behalf.
Resolved, That in the alarming prevalence of public dishonesty and private immorality, which the present forces on the side of public and private virtue are proving wholly unable to control, it is our firm conviction that women, educated to the responsibilities of a participation with men in political rights, would bring to the aid of virtuous men a new and powerful element of good, which cannot be spared, and for which there can be no substitute.
Resolved, That in advocating the opening to woman of this larger sphere, we do not undervalue her relations as a wife and mother, than which none can be more worthy of a true woman's love and pride; but it is only by a full development of her faculties and a wide range for her thought that she can become the true companion of an intelligent husband, and the wise and inspiring educator of her children; while mere domestic life furnishes no occupation to the great number of women who never marry, and a very inadequate one to those who, at middle age, with large experience and ripe wisdom, find their children grown up around them and no longer needing their care.
Resolved, That all laws which recognize a superior right in the husband to the children whom the wife has borne, or a right on the part of the husband to the property of the wife, beyond the right given to her in his property, and all laws which hold that husband and wife do not stand in all respects in the relation of equals, ought to be abrogated, and the perfect equality of husband and wife established.
Resolved, That this equality of position and rights we believe to have been intended by the Creator as the ultimate perfection of the social state, when he said, "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness, and let them have dominion"; and to have been a part of our Savior's plan for a perfect Christian society, in which an Apostle says, "there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female."
The Hartford Courant, in its description of the convention, said:
After a speech by Mr. Garrison, the Hutchinsons sang some of the religious songs of the Southern negroes with excellent taste, and then, led by them, the whole audience united in the chorus; and as the melody rose strong and clear a pathos fell upon the assembly that brought tears to many eyes. The tableau upon the stage was striking and memorable. There stood the family of singers, with the same cheerful, hopeful courage in their uplifted faces with which for twenty years they have sung of the good time almost here, of every reform; there stood William Lloyd Garrison, stern Puritan, inflexible apostle, his work gloriously done in one reform, lending the weight of his unwearied, solid intellect to that which he believes is the last needed; there was Mrs. Paulina Wright Davis, a Roman matron in figure, her noble head covered with clustering ringlets of white, courageous after a quarter of a century of unsullied devotion, though she had just confessed that sometimes she was almost weary; there was Miss Anthony, unselfish, patient, wise and practical; the graceful Mrs. Julia Ward Howe, the poet of the movement; the tall and elegant Mrs. Celia Burleigh; the benevolent Dr. Clemence Lozier; Mrs. Isabella B. Hooker, with spiritual face and firm purpose, just taking her place in the reform that has long had her heart and deep conviction, and many others of fine presence and commanding beauty—matrons, with gray hair and countenances illuminated with lives of charity; young women, flushed with hope; and as the grand Christian song went on, many a woman, leaning against a supporting pillar, gave way to the tears that would come, tears of hope deferred, tears of weary longings, tears of willing, patient devotion—e'en though it be a cross that raiseth me—and then the benediction, and the assembly dispersed, touched, it may be, into a moment's sympathy. ***
At the closing evening session the opera house was completely filled by an audience whose attendance was a compliment. *** The chairman, Rev. N. J. Burton, said: "Has not this convention been a success? I say, emphatically, it has. We have had the very best of audiences at every session, and we have provided speakers as good as the audience. We have not given you even one poor speech. I thank the audience and the speakers, one and all. I feel like thanking everybody, myself included, as chairman. In Stewart's store in New York they told me 1,500 persons were employed, all guided by one brain up-stairs, and that one brain giving the store a national reputation. This convention has been inspired and managed by one person—Mrs. Hooker of this city." After speculating as to the possible oratorical power of Mrs. H., had she received the advantages and enjoyed the practice of her brother, who spoke the previous evening, he said: "But of course Mrs. Hooker couldn't vote, nor be a member of the legislature, or even a justice of the peace. Insufferable nonsense! If such women don't vote before I die—well, like Gough's obstinate deacon, I won't die till they do."
On motion of Franklin Chamberlin, esq., the thanks of the convention were tendered to Mrs. Hooker for her efforts. At her request the chairman said that she was wholly surprised by this reference to herself. She would only say, "Thank God for our success," to which the chairman added, "Amen and Amen." He then introduced Mrs. Elizabeth Cady Stanton, daughter of the late Judge Cady of Albany, wife of the Hon. Henry B. Stanton of New York, and editor of The Revolution. She is perhaps fifty, and in general appearance much resembles Mrs. Davis. She is apparently in robust health, dresses in black, with just enough of white lace, and, with her gray hair loosely gathered, and her strong, symmetrical and refined face and perfect self-possession, is a noble-looking woman. Her address, or oration, was before her, but she 'was not hampered by it. Her voice is clear, her gesticulation simple, and her general manner not surpassed by Wendell Phillips. Rough notes of an oration so finished ¢an only indicate the main drift of her thoughts. *** The eloquent peroration was heard in profound silence, followed by enthusiastic applause. *** The chairman read the constitution and offered it for signatures, and the officers of the Connecticut Woman Suffrage Association were chosen.[5]
In The Revolution of November 11, 1869, Mrs. Stanton giving a description of the convention, refers to the liberality of the governor, Marshall Jewell, and the genial hospitalities of his noble wife:[6]
In company with Mrs. Howe and Miss Anthony, we were entertained at the governor's mansion, a fine brick building in the heart of the town, It has a small pond on one side, and eight acres of land, laid out in gardens, walks and lawns, with extensive greenhouses and graperies. The house is spacious, elegantly and tastefully furnished, with all the comforts and luxuries that wealth can command. With a conservatory, library, pictures, statuary, beautiful (strong-minded) wife and charming daughters, the noble governor is in duty bound to remain the happy, genial, handsome man he is to-day. Though the governor, owing to his pressing executive duties, did not honor our convention with his presence, we feel assured, in reading over his last able message, that he feels a deep interest in the education and elevation of women. In speaking of their school system, he calls attention to the low wages of female teachers, and the injustice of excluding girls from the scientific schools and polytechnic institutions in the State. He says:
I would especially call the attention of the legislature to the importance of furnishing to women such educational facilities as will better fit them for the industrial pursuits which the true progress of the times is opening to them. On the rights of married women, he says:
While our laws with regard to married women have been amended from time to time for several years past, so as to secure to them in a more ample manner their property, held before or acquired after marriage, yet we are still considerably behind many of our sister States, and even conservative England, in our legislation on the subject. I would recommend to your favorable consideration such an amendment of our laws as will secure to a married woman all her property, with the full control of it during her married life, and free from liability for any debts, except those contracted by herself or for which she has voluntarily made herself responsible, with the same right on the part of the husband to an interest in her property, on his surviving her, that she now has, or that it may be best to give her, in his.
On the subject of divorce the governor says:
I recommend a revision of our laws with regard to divorce. According to the report of the State librarian there were in the State last year 4,734 marriages and 478 divorces. Discontented people come here from other States, to take advantage of what is called our liberal legislation, to obtain divorces which would be denied them at home. As the sacredness of the marriage relation lies at the foundation of civilized society, it should be carefully guarded. Under our present laws the causes of divorce are too numerous, and not sufficiently defined, and too wide a discretion is given to the courts. I think the law of 1849 should be modified, and so much of the statute as grants divorces for "any such misconduct as permanently destroys the happiness of the petitioner, and defeats the purposes of the marriage relation," should be repealed. I would also suggest that the law provide that no decree of divorce shall take effect till one year after it is granted.
In conversation with the governor on this point in his message he stated the singular fact that the majority of the applications for divorce were made by women. If this be so, we suggested that the laws of Connecticut should stand as they are until the women have the right of suffrage, that they may have a voice in a social arrangement in which they have an equal interest with man himself. If Connecticut, with its blue laws, disloyal Hartford convention, and Democracy, has, nevertheless, been a Canada for fugitive wives from the yoke of matrimony, pray keep that little State, like an oasis in the desert, sacred to sad wives, at least until the sixteenth amendment of the federal constitution shall give the women of the republic the right to say whether they are ready to make marriage, under all circumstances, for better or worse, an indissoluble tie. We have grave doubts as to the sacredness of a relation in which the subject-class has no voice whatever in the laws that regulate it. We shall never know what "laws lie at the foundation of all civilized society" until woman's thought finds expression in the State, the church and the home. It is presumption for man longer to legislate alone on this vital question, when woman, too, should have a word to say in the matter. The morning after the convention we had a pleasant breakfast under Mr. and Mrs. Hooker's hospitable roof, where Boston and New York amicably broke bread and discussed the fifteenth amendment together. All the wise and witty sayings that passed around that social board, time fails to chronicle.
In 1877 Governor Hubbard called the attention of the legislature to the wrongs of married women, in the following words:
There has been for the last few years in this State much slip-shod and fragmentary legislation in respect to the property rights of married women. The old common law assumed the subjugation of the wife, and stripped her of the better part of her rights of person and nearly all her rights of property. It is a matter of astonishment that Christian nations should have been willing for eighteen centuries to hold the mothers of their race in a condition of legal servitude. It has been the scandal of jurisprudence. ence. Some progress has been made in reforming the law in this State, but it has been done, as I have already said, by patch-work and shreds, sometimes ill-considered, and often so incongruous as to provoke vexatious litigation and defy the wisdom of the courts, The property relations of husband and wife do not to-day rest on any just or harmonious system. Not only has the husband absolute disposal of all his own property freed from all dower rights, but he is practically the owner during coverture of all his wife’s estate not specially limited to her separate use; and after her death has, in every case, a life use in all her personal, and in most cases in all her real property, by a title which the wife, no matter what may have been his ill-deserts, is powerless to impair or defeat ; whereas, on the other hand, the wife has during the husband’s life no more power of her own right to sell, convey, or manage her own estate than if she were a lunatic or slave, and in case of his death has a life use in only one-third part of the real estate of which he dies possessed, and no indefeasible title whatever in any of his personal estate. As a consequence, a husband may strip his wife, by mere voluntary disposition to strangers, of all claim on his estate after his death, and thus add beggary to widowhood.
I am sure this cannot seem right to any fair-minded man. Neither is it strange that some of our countrywomen, stung by the injustice of the law towards their sex, should be demanding, as a mode of redress, a part in the making of the laws which govern them. I am confident there is manhood enough in our own sex to right this obvious wrong to which I have alluded.
I therefore recommend that the law on this subject be so recast that, in all marriages hereafter contracted, the wife shall hold her property and all her earnings for personal services not rendered to her husband or minor children, as a sole and separate estate, with absolute power of disposition in her own name, and that the surviving wife shall have, by law, the same measure of estate in the property of the deceased husband, as the surviving husband shall be allowed to have in the property of his deceased wife. This will reduce their property relations to a principle of equality, and, in my judgment, is demanded by the most obvious dictates of justice and equity. Those who are not satisfied with this can make a different law for themselves by ante-nuptial settlements.
I am not unmindful that the husband alone is liable in the first instance for the support of the family; but this is much more than neutralized by the fact that, in most cases, the wife’s whole life is spent in the toilsome and unpaid service of the household, and that the whole drift of- her estate, in consequence of her more unselfish and generous nature, is towards the husband's pockets, in spite of all the guards of the law and every consideration of prudence.
Calling attention to this stirring appeal, the Hartford Times, Democratic, used the following language :
Another notable feature of the message is its outspoken and manly call for a reformation in our laws concerning the property rights of married women. Here as in other points it is a model message. The governor's experience as a lawyer has brought him often face to face with this disgraceful one-sidedness of our laws on this subject, and in some terse sentences he shows up the injustice more effectively than has ever been done in any of the so-called women’s rights conventions.[7] The following editorial from the Springfield Republican, gives a good digest of the new law passed upon Governor Hubbard's recommendation:
Connecticut has taken a great leap forward in the reform of the property relations of married persons. The law had been long neglected in that State, the obvious right of a married woman to property acquired before marriage, which is now secured in most States by constitutional provision, having been there denied. In Massachusetts, the modification of the former inequalities has gone on by piecemeal, till it is said that in some respects the woman is now the more favored party.
The new Connecticut statute also puts the burden of the family maintenance on the man, as under most circumstances the real bread-winner. It simply lays down the principle of absolute equality in the rights and privileges of the husband and wife, with the above exception. In all marriages hereafter contracted, neither husband nor wife shall acquire any right to or interest in any property of the other, whether held before the marriage or acquired after the marriage, except as provided in this law. The separate earnings of the wife shall be her sole property. She shall have the same right to make contracts with third persons as if she were not married, and to convey her real and personal estate. Her property is liable for her debts and not for his; his is not liable for her debts, except those contracted for the support of the family. Purchases made by either party shall be presumed to be on the private account of the party, but both shall be liable where any article purchased by either shall have in fact gone to the support of the family, or for the joint benefit of both, or for the reasonable apparel of the wife, or for her reasonable support while abandoned by her husband. It shall, however, be the duty of the husband to support his family, and his property, when found, shall be first applied to satisfy any such joint liability. The wife shall be entitled to indemnity for any money of her own used to pay such claims. We have used almost the precise language of the first and second sections of the act.
On the death of either, the survivor shall be entitled to the use for life of one-third the estate of the deceased, which right cannot be defeated by will. If the deceased leaves no children or representatives of children, the survivor is entitled to one-half instead of one-third. When either party gives a legacy to the other, the latter may choose between its rights under the will, and those under the statute. Abandonment without cause may defeat this provision, and a marriage contract may supersede it ent-
tirely. Parties already married may contract to surrender their present rights for those secured by this statute, such contracts to be recorded in the probate court.
Thus we have a new and clear statute framed in accordance with a simple principle of reform, for which the Republican has long done battle—the equality of married persons in their rights and responsibilities of property. The adoption of the reform is due deeply to the general agitation of the rights of women, the efforts of Mrs. Isabella Beecher Hooker, the Smith girls' cows, and perhaps some flagrant instance of injustice to rich wives by tyrant husbands near the capital. But the great occasion and immediate cause, without which this generation might have pleaded for it in vain, was the perception of the justice of it by Governor Hubbard, and his open advocacy of it in his message. Lawyers have one answer for all reforms regarding property or civil contracts—they are impossible. But here was undeniably the best lawyer in the State who said, and threw the weight of his first State paper on the proposition, that this thing was possible, and, if he said it was possible, there was no man who could gainsay it. The legislature took the reform on its own sense of justice and on the assurance of Richard D. Hubbard, that it would work.
On June 6, 1870, at a second hearing[8]before the Joint Committee on Woman Suffrage, in the capitol at New Haven, Rev. Phebe A. Hanaford of the Universalist church, Mrs. Benchley and Mrs. Russell were the speakers. During that session of the legislature Mrs. Hanaford acted as chaplain both in the Senate and House of Representatives, and received a check for her services which she valued chiefly as a recognition of woman's equality in the clerical profession.
Mrs. Hooker was ably sustained in her new position by her husband, a prominent lawyer of the State. Being equally familiar with civil and canon law, with Blackstone and the Bible, he was well equipped to meet the opponents of the reform at every point. While Mrs. Hooker held meetings in churches and school-houses through the State, her husband in his leisure hours sent the daily press articles on the subject. And thus their united efforts stirred the people to thought and at last roused a Democratic governor of the State to his duty on this question. From the many able tracts issued and articles published in the journals we give a few extracts. In answer to the common objections of "free love" and "easy divorce," in the Evening Post of January 17, 1871, Mr. Hooker said:
The persons who advocate easy divorce would advocate it just as strongly if there was no woman suffrage movement. The two have no necessary connection. Indeed one of the strongest arguments in favor of woman suffrage is, that the marriage relation will be safer with women to vote and legislate upon it than where the voting and legislation are left wholly to the men. Women will always be wives and mothers, above all things else. This law of nature cannot be changed, and I know of nobody who desires to change it. The marriage relation will therefore always be more to woman than to man, and we, who would give her the right to vote, have no fear to trust to her the sanctity and purity of that relation. It is the opponents of woman suffrage who distrust the fidelity of woman to her divine instincts and dare not let her vote. Our little State has been two hundred years under male legislation, and yet a long memorial from hundreds of clergymen and other Christian men went up to our legislature two years ago, representing our legislation on divorce as demoralizing and as fatal to the best interests of the marriage relation. It really seems as if the incompetency for the management of public affairs which by mere assumption is charged in advance upon women, has been proved with regard to men by an actual experience of many years. The true idea is for man and woman to share together the responsibilities and duties of legislation, and until this is done I have no hope for any real progress towards purity in the administration of our public affairs. We who favor woman suffrage speak confidently on this subject because the reform works so well wherever it has been tried, in England, Sweden, Austria and Wyoming Territory.
No rational man can suppose for a moment that with woman suffrage established in England and on the continent of Europe, we in this country, which so specially stands on equal representation, are going to refuse it. It must be set down as one of the certain things of the future. And when it has come, and women vote, it will excite no more attention or comment than the voting of our colored people.
Now if woman suffrage is to come, is it worth while to be making the impression that the women of our country are not to be trusted with it, and that the marriage relation is to be imperiled by it? Above all, is it manly or just to be charging corrupt motives on nine-tenths of those who advocate the reform? The notoriety which to some extent its advocates must get is almost universally painful to the women who are the subjects of it. One noble woman, whose whole soul is in this cause, and the purity of whose motives in this, as in everything else, I have had good opportunity to learn, said to me, on reading Dr. Bushnell's remark in his book on woman suffrage, that these women were only trying to make themselves men: "Cruel, cruel words! If so noble a man as Dr. Bushnell so utterly fails to comprehend a woman's nature, shall not she be allowed to speak for herself, and no testimony be taken but hers?"[9]
Much might be said in regard to the most famous women of Connecticut, the historic "Maids of Glastonbury," celebrated for their resistance to taxation. After the death of Abby, July 23, 1878, Mrs. Elizabeth Oakes Smith, in a beautiful tribute to the sisters, said:
Many years ago they took a stand akin to that of the illustrious Hampden, which has made his name a synonym for patriotism as well as just and manly opposition to unconstitutional revenue exaction. "The tax may be a small matter for an English gentleman to pay, but it is too much for a British freeman to pay," was the ground of his noble resistance, and this view precipitated that great Revolution which more than all other modern movements consolidated and strengthened the rights of the British subject. These two women deserve to stand upon a platform side by side with the great Hampden. Other women have paid their taxes under protest, but Abby and Julia Smith have done more than protest; they have suffered loss as well as inconvenience, their property having been seized and sold again and again because of their honest conviction that taxation without representation was as unjust to women as to men. Their steadfastness has been the more remarkable because, by their social position, their learning and their wealth, they might be supposed to be indifferent to the ballot-box, as so many thus situated claim to be. Abby and her sister were no ordinary women. The family originally consisted of five sisters, all more or less accomplished. The father was a man of learning, a graduate of Yale and a clergyman. The mother was familiar with French and Italian, and no mean astronomer. Thus parented, it is not surprising that the Glastonbury sisters were of marked individualism as well as superior scholarship. They were more or less acquainted with Hebrew, Greek and Latin, and have made a translation of the Bible from these sources, giving its original meaning. The maids of Glastonbury planted themselves upon the right of the sex to suffrage, from purely philosophic and statesman-like grounds. They had no other disabilities of which to complain—no other grievance—no social ostracism, as is so often charged, and most unjustly, against other advocates of the doctrine. They were unmarried, studious, upright, simple-minded gentlewomen, and were much esteemed and honored in the community in which they lived. They occupied the old homestead, doing their own work, their interests well cared for in the person of Mr. Kellogg, an intelligent tenant of theirs, as well as friend and neighbor.
The Hartford Post, in a tender mention of the life and death of Abby, with a brief sketch of the family, thus bears honorable testimony to her worthiness:
In the death of Miss Smith the cause of woman suffrage has met with a severe loss, as her firm resistance to what she believed to be the unjust treatment of women greatly encouraged her companions in the contest; her sister has lost her chief support, and the community in which she lived a faithful friend and a worthy exponent of the virtues of truthfulness, firmness, and adherence to the right as she understood it.
The Hartford Times said:
A notable woman who died last week was Miss Abigail H. Smith, of Glastonbury, Conn., one of the two sisters who resisted the collection of their taxes on the ground that they had no voice in the levy. It will be remembered that their cows were seized and some of their personal property sold two years ago. Of course there were friends who were willing and anxious to pay the taxes, but the plucky old ladies were fighting for a principle, and they would allow no one to stand in the way. The notoriety, which they neither sought nor avoided, undoubtedly did a great deal to call public attention to the anomalous condition of woman under the law. It would be very hard for any man to argue successfully that he possessed any stronger natural claim to the suffrage than was possessed by these shrewd, honest, energetic old ladies. Many encouraging letters were written the sisters during their many trials, of which the following is a fair specimen:
Near Boston, January 14, 1874.
My Dear Madam: The account of your hardships is interesting, and your action will be highly beneficial in bringing the subject to public notice, and in leading to the correction of a great injustice. The taxation of the property of women, without allowing them any representation, even in town affairs, is so unfair that it seems only necessary to bring it to public view to make it odious and to bring about a change. Therefore you deserve the greater honor, not only because you have suffered in a good cause, but because you have set an example that will be followed, and that will lead to happy results.
Your case has its parallel in every township of New England. In the town where this is written a widow pays into the treasury $7,830 a year, while 600 men, a number equal to half the whole number of voters, pay $1,200 in all. Another lady pays $5,042. Yet neither has a single vote, not even by proxy. That is, each one of 600 men who have no property, who pay only a poll-tax, and many of whom cannot read or write, has the power of voting away the property of the town, while the female owners have no power at all. We have lately spent a day in celebrating the heroism of those who threw overboard the tea; but how trifling was the tea-tax, and how small the injustice to individuals compared with this one of our day! The principle, however, was the same—that there should be no taxation where there is no representation. And this is what we ought to stand by. Please to accept the sympathy and respect of one of your fellow citizens. No doubt you will have the same from all in due time; or, at any rate, from all who love to see fair play.
Very truly yours,Amos A. Lawrence.
A marked evidence of the advance of public sentiment was manifested by a decision of the Supreme Court in 1882, by which the women of Connecticut were held to have the right to practice law. The opinion of Chief-Justice Park concerning the legality of the admission of Miss Mary Hall of Hartford to the bar, giving her the right to practice in the courts of the State, is as follows:
This is an application by a woman for admission to the bar of Hartford county. After having completed the prescribed term of study she has passed the examination required and has been recommended by the bar of the county to the Superior Court for admission, subject to the opinion of the court upon the question whether, as a woman, she can legally be admitted. The Superior Court has reserved the case for our advice.
The statute with regard to the admission of attorneys by the court is the 29th section of chapter 3, title 4, of the General Statutes, and is in the following words: "The Superior Court may admit and cause to be sworn as attorneys such persons as are qualified therefor agreeably to the rules established by the judges of said court; and no other person than an attorney so admitted shall plead at the bar of any court of this State, except in his own cause." It is not contended, in opposition to the application, that the language of this statute is not comprehensive enough to include women, but the claim is that at the time it was passed its application to women was not thought of, while the fact that women have never been admitted as attorneys, either by the English courts or by any of the courts of this country, had established a common-law disability, which could be removed only by a statute intended to have that effect.
It is hardly necessary to consider how far the fact that women have never pursued a particular profession or occupied a particular official position, to the pursuit or occupancy of which some governmental license or authority was necessary, constitutes a common-law disability for receiving such license or authority, because here the statute is ample for removing that disability if we can construe it as applying to women; so that we come back to the question whether we are by construction to limit the application of the statute to men alone, by reason of the fact that in its original enactment its application to women was not intended by the legislators that enacted it. And upon this point we remark, in the first place, that an inquiry of this sort involves very serious difficulties. No one would doubt that a statute passed at this time in the same words would be sufficient to authorize the admission of women to the bar, because it is now a common fact and presumably in the minds of legislators, that women in different parts of the country are, and for some time have been, following the profession of law. But if we hold that the construction of the statute is to be determined by the admitted fact that its application to women was not in the minds of the legislators when it was passed, where shall we draw the line? All progress in social matters is gradual. We pass almost imperceptibly from a state of public opinion that utterly condemns some course of action to one that strongly approves it. At what point, in the history of this change, shall we regard a statute, the construction of which is to be affected by it, as passed in contemplation of it? When the statute we are now considering was passed, it probably never entered the mind of a single member of the legislature that black men would ever be seeking for admission under it. Shall we now hold that it cannot apply to black men? We know of no distinction in respect to this rule between the case of a statute and that of a constitutional provision. When our State constitution was adopted in 1818 it was provided in it that every elector should be "eligible to any office in the State," except where otherwise provided in the constitution. It is clear that the convention that framed, and probably all the people who voted to adopt the constitution, had no idea that black men would ever be electors, and contemplated only white men as within any possible application of the provision, for the same constitution provided that only white men should be electors. But now that black men are made electors, will it do to say that they are not entitled to the full rights of electors in respect to holding office, because an application of the provision to them was never thought of when it was adopted? Events that gave rise to enactments may always be considered in construing them. This is little more than the familiar rule that in construing a statute we always inquire what particular mischief it was designed to remedy. Thus, the Supreme Court of the United States has held that in construing the recent amendments of the federal constitution, although they are general in their terms, it is to be considered that they were passed with reference to the exigencies growing out of the emancipation of the slaves, and for the purpose of benefiting the blacks (Slaughter-house Cases, 16 Wall., 67; Strauder vs. West Virginia, 100 U. S. Reps., 306). But this statute was not passed for the purpose of benefiting men as distinguished from women. It grew out of no exigency caused by the relation of the sexes. Its object was wholly to secure the orderly trial of causes and the better administration of justice. Indeed, the preamble to the first statute providing for the admission of attorneys, states its object to be "for the well-ordering of proceedings and pleas at the bar."
The statute on this subject was not originally passed in its present form. The first act with regard to the admission of attorneys was that of 1708, which was as follows: "That no person, except in his own cause, shall be admitted to make any plea at the bar without being first approved by the court before whom the plea is to be made, nor until he shall take in the said court the following oath," etc. (Col. Records, 1706 to 1716, page 48). This act seems to have contemplated an approval by the court in each particular case in which an attorney appeared before it. The first act with regard to the general admission of attorneys appears in the revision of 1750, and is as follows: "That the county courts of the respective counties in this colony shall appoint, and they are hereby empowered to approve, nominate and appoint attorneys in their respective counties, as there shall be occasion, to plead at the bar; * * and that no person, except in his own case, shall make any plea at the bar in any court but such as are allowed and qualified attorneys, as aforesaid." Thus the statute stood until the revision of 1821; when, for the first time, it took essentially its present form. Up to this time the word "person" had been used in this statute only in the clause that "no person" should be allowed to practice before the courts except where formally admitted by the court, a use of the word which, of course, could not be regarded as limited to the male sex, as women would undoubtedly have been held to be included in the term. The language of the statute as now adopted was as follows: "The county courts may make such rules and regulations as to them shall seem proper relative to the admission and practice of attorneys; and may approve of, admit and cause to be sworn as attorneys, such persons as are qualified therefor agreeably to the rules established; * * and no person not thus admitted, except in his own cause, shall be admitted or allowed to plead at the bar of any court." The statute in this form passed through the compilations of 1835 and 1838, the revision of 1849 and the compilation of 1854, and appears, with a slight modification, in the revision of 1866. The county courts had now been abolished, and the power to admit attorneys, as well as to make rules on the subject, had been given to the Superior Court; the expression, "such persons," being preserved, and the provision that "no person" not thus admitted should be allowed to plead, being omitted.
The statute finally took its present form in the revision of 1875. It retains the provision that the Superior Court may make rules for the admission of attorneys, and provides that the court "may admit and cause to be sworn as attorneys such persons as are qualified therefor agreeably to the rules established," and restores the provision, dropt in the revision of 1866, that "no person other than an attorney so admitted shall plead at the bar of any court in this State, except in his own cause."
These changes, though not such as to affect the meaning of the statute at any point of importance to the present question, are yet not wholly without importance. The adoption by the legislature of the revision of the statutes becomes, both in law and in fact, a reënactment of the whole body of statutes; and though in determining the meaning of a statute, we are not to regard it as then enacted for the first time, especially if there be no change in its phraseology, yet, where there is such a change, it follows that the attention of the revisers had been particularly directed to that statute, as of course also that of the legislature, and that with the changes made it expresses the present intent of both. Thus, in this case, it is clear that the revisers gave particular thought to the phraseology of the statute we are considering, and put it in a form that seemed to them best with reference to the present state of things, and decided to leave the words "such persons" to stand with full knowledge that they were sufficient to include women, and that women were already following the profession of law in different parts of the country. The legislators must be presumed to have acted with the same consideration and knowledge. It would have been perfectly easy, if either had thought best, to insert some words of limitation or exclusion, but it was not done. Not only so, but a clause omitted in the revision of 1866 was restored, providing that no "person" not regularly admitted should act as an attorney—a term which necessarily included women, and the insertion of which made it necessary, if the word "persons" as used in the first part of the statute should be held not to include women, to give two entirely different meanings to the same word where occurring twice in the same statute and with regard to the same subject matter.
The object of a revision of statutes is, that there may be such changes made in them as the changes in political and social matters may demand, and where no changes are made it is to be presumed that the legislature is satisfied with it in its present form. And where some changes are made in a particular statute, and other parts of it are left unchanged, there is the more reason for the inference from this evidence that the matter of changing the statute was especially considered, that the parts unchanged express the legislative will of to-day, rather than that of perhaps a hundred years ago, when it was originally enacted.
But this statute, in the revision of 1875, is placed immediately after another with regard to the appointment of commissioners of the Superior Court, the necessary construction of which, we think, throws light upon the construction of the statute in question. That act was passed in 1855, after women had begun, with general acceptance, to occupy a greatly enlarged field of industry and some professional and even public positions; and it has been held by the Superior Court, very properly we think, as applying to women, a woman having three years ago been appointed commissioner under it. Its language is as follows: "The Superior Court in any county may appoint any number of persons in such county to be commissioners of the Superior Court, who, when sworn, may sign writs and subpoenas, take recognizances, administer oaths and take depositions and the acknowledgement of deeds, and shall hold office for two years from their appointment." Here the very language is used which is used in the statute with regard to attorneys. In one it is, "any number of persons," in the other, "such persons as are qualified." These two statutes are placed in immediate juxtaposition in the revision of 1875 and deal with kindred subjects, and it is reasonable to presume that the revisers and legislature intended both to receive the same construction. It would seem strange to any common-sense observer that an entirely different meaning should be given to the same word in the two statutes, especially when in giving the narrower meaning to the word in the statute with regard to attorneys, we are compelled to give it a different meaning from that which the same word requires in the next line of the same statute.
We are not to forget that all statutes are to be construed, as far as possible, in favor of equality of rights. All restrictions upon human liberty, all claims for special privileges, are to be regarded as having the presumption of law against them, and as standing upon their defense, and can be sustained if at all by valid legislation, only by the clear expression or clear implication of the law.
We have some noteworthy illustrations of the recognition of women as eligible or appointable to office under statutes of which the language is merely general. Thus, women are appointed in all parts of the country as postmasters. The act of congress of 1825 was the first one conferring upon the postmaster-general the power of appointing postmasters, and it has remained essentially unchanged to the present time. The language of the act is, that "the postmaster-general shall establish post-offices and appoint postmasters." Here women are not included, except in the general term "postmasters," a term which seems to imply a male person; and no legislation from 1825 down to the present time authorizes the appointment of women, nor is there any reference in terms to women until the revision of 1874, which recognizes the fact that women had already been appointed, in providing that "the bond of any married woman who may be appointed postmaster shall be binding on her and her sureties." Some of the higher grades of postmasters are appointed by the president, subject to confirmation by the Senate, and such appointments and confirmations have repeatedly been made. The same may be said of pension agents. The acts of congress on the subject have simply authorized "the President, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, to appoint all pension agents, who shall hold their offices for the term of four years, and shall give bond," etc. At the last session of congress a married woman in Chicago was appointed for a third term pension agent for the State of Illinois, and the public papers stated that there was not a single vote against her confirmation in the Senate. Public opinion is everywhere approving of such appointments. They promote the public interest, which is benefitted by every legitimate use of individual ability, while mere justice, which is of interest to all, requires that all have the fullest opportunity for the exercise of their abilities. These cases are the more noteworthy as being cases of public offices, to which the incumbent is appointed for a term of years, upon a compensation provided by law, and in which he is required to give bond. If an attorney is to be regarded as an officer, it is in a lower sense.
We have had pressed upon us by the counsel opposed to the applicant, the decisions of the courts of Massachusetts, Wisconsin and Illinois, and the United States Court of Claims, adverse to such an application. While not prepared to accede to all the general views expressed in those decisions, we do not think it necessary to go into a discussion of them, as we regard our statute, in view of all the considerations affecting its construction, as too clear to admit of any reasonable question as to the interpretation and effect which we ought to give it.
In this opinion Carpenter and Loomis, Js., concurred; Pardee, J., dissented.
In 1884, the State society held a spirited and successful convention.[10]</ref>Julia Smith gave an extemporaneous talk to the great delight of the audience, who applauded continually; Mrs. Crane, a fine elocutionist, gave a reading from Carlyle; Mrs. Hooker closed with a brief résumé of the work the society had accomplished.
We are also indebted to Frances Ellen Burr for many facts, as the following letter will show:
Hartford, September 17, 1885.
My Dear Miss Anthony: I have received your letter of inquiry. As to that petition in 1867, I was one of the signers, and, probably had something to do with getting the other signatures, though I have nothing but my memory to depend on as to that; but I was pretty much alone here in those days, on the woman suffrage question. Who the other signers were I made an attempt to find out in the secretary of state's office the other day, but found that it would take days, instead of the few hours I had at my command. I find in my journal a reference to Lucy Stone and Mr. Blackwell addressing the committee in the House of Representatives, and that was the committee that made the report afterwards published in The Revolution. Mr. Croffut made the opening address on the day of the hearing. He was always ready to aid us in whatever way he could, and I felt grateful to him, for a helping hand was doubly appreciated in those days. I find by the journal of the House for that year that the vote on the question was 93 yeas to 111 nays. The name of Miss Susie Hutchinson heads one petition, with 70 others. How many other petitions there were that year I do not know, but I believe there have been several every year since, besides a number of individual petitions. Since that time the House has voted favorably on the question twice, at least, but I believe we have never had a majority in the Senate. You ask when I first wrote or spoke for the ballot. My first venture in that line was in 1853. I was then at the age of twenty-two, living with my sister in Cleveland, O., and had never given any attention to the subject of woman suffrage, and cared nothing about it any further than the spirit of rebellion—born with me—against everything unjust, might be said to have made me a radical by nature. In the fall of that year a woman's rights convention met in Cleveland, and I attended it alone, none of the rest of the family caring to go. In my old journal I find this entry:
October 7, 1853. Attended a woman's rights convention which has met here. Never saw anything of the kind before. A Mr. Barker spent most of the morning trying to prove that woman's rights and the Bible cannot agree. The Rev. Antoinette L. Brown replied in the afternoon in defense of the Bible. She says the Bible favors woman's rights. Miss Brown is the best-looking woman in the convention. They appear to have a number of original and pleasing characters upon their platform, among them Miss Lucy Stone—hair short and rolled under like a man's; a tight-fitting velvet waist and linen collar at the throat; bombazine skirt just reaching the knees, and trousers of the same. She is independent in manner and advocates woman's rights in the strongest terms:—scorns the idea of woman asking rights of man, but says she must boldly assert her own rights, and take them in her own strength. Mrs. Ernestine L. Rose, a Polish lady with black eyes and curls, and rosy cheeks, manifests the independent spirit also. She is graceful and witty, and is ready with sharp replies on all occasions. Mrs. Lucretia Mott, a Philadelphia Quaker, is meek in dress but not in spirit. She gets up and hammers away at woman's rights, politics and the Bible, with much vigor, then quietly resumes her knitting, to which she industriously applies herself when not speaking to the audience. She wears the plain Quaker dress and close-fitting white cap. Mrs. Frances D. Gage, the president, is a woman of sound sense and a good writer of prose and poetry. Mrs. Caroline Severance has an easy, pleasing way of speaking. Mr. Charles Burleigh, a Quaker, appears to be an original character. He has long hair, parted in the middle like a woman's, and hanging down his back. He and Miss Stone seem to reverse the usual order of things.
My first speech in public, I find by my old journal—which serves me better than I thought it would—was given in Music Hall in this city in November, 1870. This meeting was held under the auspices of the State association, and was presided over by the Rev. Olympia Brown. I find that in the winter of 1871 I made addresses in various parts of the State. The journal also tells of a good deal of trotting about to get signatures to petitions, for I had more time to do that thing then than I have now. The first woman suffrage meeting ever held in Hartford, and the first, probably, in Connecticut, was the one you and Mrs. Stanton held in Allyn Hall in December, 1867. Our State Suffrage Association was organized in October, 1869. The signers[11]to the call for that convention were quite influential persons. In my hunt through the journals of the two legislative houses I found in the House journal for 1878 that Mr. Pratt of Meriden had presented the petition of Mr. and Mrs. Isaac C. Lewis. Mr. Clark of Enfield, presented the petition of Lucy A. Allen; Mr. Gallagher of New Haven presented several petitions that year, one of them being headed by Mr. Henry A. Stillman ot Wethersfield, followed by 532 names, and another by Mrs. D. F. Connor, M. D. Mr. Broadhead of Glastonbury presented the petition of the Smith sisters. This unique petition Miss Mary Hall, who was with me in the secretary's office, chanced to light upon, and she copied it. It is a document well worth handing down on the page of history, and runs as follows:
This is the first time we have petitioned your honorable body, having twice come before the House of Assembly, which the last time gave a majority that we should vote in town affairs; but it was negatived in the Senate.
We now pray the highest court in our native State that we may be relieved from the stigma of birth. For forty years since the death of our father have we suffered intensely for being born women. We cannot even stand up for the principles of our forefathers (who fought and bled for them) without having our property seized and sold at the sign-post, which we have suffered four times; and have also seen eleven acres of our meadow-land sold to an ugly neighbor for a tax of fifty dollars—land worth more than $2,000, And a threat is given out that our house shall be ransacked and despoiled of articles most dear to us, the work of lamented members of our family who have gone before us, and all this is done without the least excuse of right or justice. We are told that it is the law of the land made by the legislature and done to us, two defenceless women, who have never broken these laws, made by not half the citizens of this State. And it was said in our Declaration of Independence that" Governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed."
For being born women we are obliged to help support those who have earned nothing, and who, by gambling, drinking, and the like, have come to poverty, and these same can vote away what we have earned with our own hands. And when men meet to take off the dollar poll-tax, the bill for the dinner comes in for the women to pay. Neither have we husband, or brother, or son, or even nephew, or cousin, to help us. All men will acknowledge that it is as wrong to take a woman's property without her consent as to take a man's without his consent; and such wrong we suffer wholly for being born women, which we are in no wise to blame for. To be sure, for our consolation, we are upheld by the learned, the wise and the good, from all parts of the country, having received communications from thirty-two of our States, as well as from over the seas, that we are in the right, and from many of the best men in our own State. But they have no power to help us. We therefore now pray your honorable body, who have power, with the House of Assembly, to relieve us of this stigma of birth, and grant that we may have the same privileges before the Jaw as though we were born men. And this, as in duty bound, we will ever pray.
Glastonbury, Conn., January 29, 1878.Julia and Abby Smith.
addressing the Glastonbury town meeting in the little red-brick town-house of that place—a building that will always hereafter be connected with the names of Abby and Julia Smith. Several years after, wishing to address them again, she was refused entrance there, so she and Julia addressed the people from an ox-cart that stood in front. This was after their continued warfare against "taxation without representation" had aroused the opposition of their townsmen, but that first speech in 1873 was the beginning of their fame. Abby sent it to me for publication in the Times of this city, but the editor not having room for it sent it to the Courant, which gave it a place in its columns, thus (unwittingly) setting a ball in motion that ran all round the country, and even over the ocean. The simplicity and uniqueness of the story of "Abby Smith and her cows," gave a boom to the cause of woman suffrage as welcome as it was unexpected. The Glastonbury mails were more heavily laden than ever before in the history of this hitherto unknown town, for letters came pouring in from all quarters to the sisters. The fame did not rest entirely on Abby and her cows; Julia and her Bible came in for an important share, and the newspaper articles in regard to them were a remarkable blending of cows and Biblical lore, dairy products and Greek and Hebrew. Many of the articles were wide of the facts, being written with a view to make a bright and readable column. For instance, a Chicago paper got up a highly colored article in which it said that Abby Smith's mother—Hannah Hickok—was such an intense student that her father had a glass cage made for her to study in. The only vestage of truth in this story was that, lacking our modern facilities for heating, Mr. Hickok had an extra amount of glass put into the south side of his daughter's room that the sun might give it a little more heat in cold weather. Hannah Hickok seems to have had a mental equipment much above that of the average woman of that day; she had a taste for literature, and was something of a linguist, and wrote, moreover, at different times, quite an amount of readable verse. She had a taste for mathematics, and also for astronomy, and made for her own use an almanac, for these were not so plenty then as now; she could, on awakening, tell any hour of the night by the position of the stars. Evidently Hannah Hickok Smith was not an ordinary woman; and it is quite as evident that her daughters were equally original, though in a different direction. Women who have translated the Bible are not to be met with every day—nor men either, for that matter, but Julia Smith not only did this, but translated it five times,—twice from the Hebrew, twice from the Greek, and once from the Latin; and thirty years later, or after the age of eighty, published the translation; and then, to crown the list of marvels, married at the age of eighty-five.
One point more, and the one nearest my heart. You ask me about my "dear friend Mrs. Buckingham." I can give no details of her suffrage work, but her heart was in it, and her name should be handed down in your History. She was at one time chairman of the executive committee of our State association, and she would, if she had thought it necessary, have spent of her little income to the last cent to help along the cause. She made public addresses and wrote many suffrage articles and letters that were published in different papers, but she made no noise about it; her work was all done with her own characteristic gentleness. Generous to a fault, winning and beautiful as the flowers she scattered on the pathway of her friends, she passed on her way; and one memorable Easter morning she left us so gently that none knew when the sleep of life passed into the sleep of death; we only knew that the glorious light of her eyes—a light like that which "never shone on sea or land"—had gone out forever.
"She died in beauty like the dew
Of flowers dissolved away;
She died in beauty like a star
Lost on the brow of day."
The Hartford Equal Rights Club[12] was organized in March, 1885, and holds semi-monthly meetings. Its membership is not large, but what it lacks in numbers it makes up in earnestness. Its proceedings are reported pretty fully and published in the Hartford Times, which has a large circulation, thus gaining an audience of many thousands and making its proceedings much more important than they would otherwise be. It is managed as simply as possible, and is not encumbered with a long list of officers. There are simply a president, Mrs. Emily P. Collins;[13]a vice-president, Miss Mary Hall; and a secretary, Frances Ellen Burr, who is also the treasurer. Debate is free to all, the platform being perfectly independent, as far as a platform can be independent within the limits of reason. Essays are read and debated, and many interesting off-hand speeches are made. It is an entirely separate organization from the Connecticut State Suffrage Association, founded in 1869. But its membership is not confined to the city; it invites people throughout the State, or in other States, to become members—people of all classes and of all beliefs. Opponents of woman suffrage are always welcome, for these furnish the spice of debate. Among the topics discussed has been that of woman and the church, and upon this subject Mrs. Stanton has written the club several letters.
Last spring (1885) a number of the members of the club were given hearings before the Committee on Woman Suffrage in the legislature in reference to a bill then under consideration, which was exceedingly limited in its provisions. The House of Representatives improved it and then passed it, but it was afterwards defeated in the Senate. Some of the meetings of the club have been held in Hartford's handsome capitol, a room having been allowed for its use, and a number of members of the House of Representatives have taken part in the discussions. Mrs. Collins, president of the club, is always to be depended upon for good work, and Miss Hall, its vice-president, is active and efficient. She is in herself an illustration of what women can become if they only have sufficient confidence and force of will. She is a practicing lawyer, and a successful one.
- ↑ The life of William Lloyd Garrison, Vol. I.: The Century Company, New York.
- ↑ She was soon followed by Mrs. Middlebrook and Mrs. Lucy R. Elms, with warm benedictions. The latter called some meetings in her neighborhood in the autumn of 1868, and entertained us most hospitably at her beautiful home.
- ↑ Those who leave the tangled problem of life to God for solution find, sooner or later, that God leaves it to them to settle in their own way.—[E. C. S.
- ↑ Among them were Paulina Wright Davis, Dr. Clemence Lozier, Mary A. Livermore, Julia Ward Howe, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, Celia Burleigh, Caroline M. Severance, Rev. Olympia Brown, Frances Ellen Burr, Charlotte B. Wilbour, William Lloyd Garrison, Henry Ward Beecher, Nathaniel I. Burton, John Hooker, the Hutchinsons, with Sister Abby and her husband, Ludlow Patton.
- ↑ President, Rev. N. J. Burton, Hartford. Vice-presidents, Brigadier-general B. S. Roberts, U.S. A., New Haven; Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe, Hartford; Rev. Dr. Joseph Cummings, Middletown; Rev. William L. Gage, Hartford; Rev. Olympia Brown, Bridgeport. Secretary, Miss Frances Ellen Burr. Executive Committee, Mrs. Isabella B. Hooker, Mrs. Lucy Elmes, Derby; Mrs. J. G. Parsons and Miss Emily Manning, M. D., Hartford. Treasurer, John Hooker.
- ↑ On her departure for St. Petersburg, where her husband was minister plenipotentiary, Mrs. Jewell left a check of $200 for the State: Society. She was an honored officer of the National Suffrage Association until the time of her death, in 1883.
- ↑ Mrs. Hooker writes us that the act passed upon Governor Hubbard’s recommendation was prepared at his request by Mr. Hooker, and was essentially the same that had been unsuccessfully urged by him upon the legislature eight years before. She then goes onto say; “ What part our society had in our bringing about so beneficent a change in legislation, cannot be better set forth than in two private letters from Samuel Bowles of the Springfield Republican, and Governor Hubbard. While these gentlemen were friends of Mr. Hooker and myself, yet, as politically opposed to each other, their united testimony is exceedingly valuable, and since they have both passed on to a world of more perfect adjustments, I feel that nothing would give them greater satisfaction than to be put upon record here as among the earliest defenders of the rights of women.
"Springfield, Mass., March 28, 1877.
"My Dear Mrs. Hooker:—I return your letters and paper as you desired. It is an interesting story, and a most gratifying movement forward. I am more happy over the bill passed, than I am sorry over the bill that failed. We shall move fast enough. The first great step is this successful measure in Connecti-
- ↑ At the various hearings Mrs. Anna Middlebrook, Mr. and Mrs. Joseph Sheldon, Julia and Abby Smith, Rev. Olympia Brown, Mr. and Mrs. Hooker were the speakers.
- ↑ See Appendix for Mr. Hooker's article, "Is the Family the Basis of the State?"
- ↑ At the convention of March 17 and 18, 1884, the speakers were Mrs. Hooker, Susan B. Anthony, the Rev. Charles Stowe, Julia Smith Parker, Mrs. Emily Collins, Abigail Scott Duniway, Miss Leonard, Mrs. C. G. Rogers, the Rev. Dr. A. J. Sage, Mrs. Ellis, Miss Gage, the Rev. J. C. Kimball, the Rev. Mr. Everts of Hartford, Mary Hall and F. E. Burr. The officers elected at this meeting were: Isabella B. Hooker, President: F. Ellen Burr, Secretary; Mary Hall, Assistant-secretary; John Hooker, Treasurer. Executive Committee; Mrs. Ellen Burr McManus, Mrs. Emily P. Collins, Mrs. Amy A. Ellis, Mrs. J. G. Parsons Hartford; Mrs. Susan J. Cheney, South Manchester; Mrs. John S. Dobson, Vernon Depot; Judge Joseph Sheldon, Charles Atwater, James Gallagher, New Haven.
- ↑ John Hooker, Isabella B. Hooker, the Rev. N. J. Burton, Rachel C. Burton, Franklin Chamberlin, Francis Gillette, Eliza D. Gillette, Frances Ellen Burr, Catharine E. Beecher, Esther E. Jewell, Calvin E. Stowe, Harriet Beecher Stowe and others, Hartford; Joseph Cummings, Middletown, President of Wesleyan University; Thomas Elmes, Lucy R. Elmes, Derby; Charles Atwater, New Haven; Thomas T. Stone, Laura Stone, Brooklyn. The officers elected for the Association were: President, the Rev. N. J. Burton, Hartford; Secretary, Frances Ellen Burr; Executive Committee, Isabella B. Hooker; Mrs. Lucy R. Elmes, Derby; Mrs. J. G. Parsons, Miss Emily Manning, M. C., Hartford; Mr. Charles Atwater, New Haven; Mr. Ward Cheney, Mrs. Susan J. Cheney, South Manchester; Mrs. Virginia Smith, Hartford. Treasurer, William B. Smith, Hartford. There was a long list of vice-presidents, which I presume you do not care for, nor for the other names that were added as changes had to be made in the years that followed.
- ↑ A member of the club says: "We receive more of our life and enthusiasm from Frances Ellen Burr than all other members combined; indeed, the chief part of the work rests on her shoulders."
- ↑ See Mrs. Collins's Reminiscences, chapter V., Vol. I.,
cut—the establishment in practice of the principle of equal, mutual, legal rights, and equal, mutual, legal responsibilities, for which I have been preaching and praying these twenty years. We owe the success this year, first to the right of the matter; second, to the agitation of the whole question which has disseminated the perception of that right; third, to you and your husband in particular; and fourth, to the fact that you had in Connecticut this year a governor who was recognized as the leading lawyer of the State, a genuine natural conservative who yet said the measure was right and ought to go. It is this last element that has given Connecticut its chief leadership. It is a bigger thing than it seems at first to have an eminent conservative lawyer on the side of such legislative reform. I hate very much to take your husband's side against you, and yet now that I am over fifty years old, I find I more and more sympathize with his patience and philosophy with the slow-going march of reform. But with such things going forward in national politics, and such a sign in the heavens as this in Connecticut, we ought all to be very happy—and I believe I am, in spite of debts, hard work, fatigue and more or less chronic invalidism. At any rate I salute you both with honor and with affection."
"Very faithfully yours,Samuel Bowles.
"This letter I enclosed to Governor Hubbard and received the following reply:
"Easter, April 1, 1877.
"My Good Friend:—It was a 'Good Friday' indeed that brought your friendly missive. And what a dainty and gracious epistle Sam. Bowles does know how to write! He is a good fellow, upon my word, full of generous instincts and ideas. He ought to be at the head of the London Times and master of all the wealth it brings. Add to this, that the Good Physician should heal him of his 'chronic invalidism' and then—well what's the use of dreaming? Thank yourself, and such as you for what there is of progress in respect of woman's rights amongst us. I do believe our bill is a 'great leap forward' as Bowles says in his editorial. 'Alas!' says my friend ———, 'it has destroyed the divine conception of the unity of husband and wife.' As divine, upon my soul, as the unity of the lamb and the devouring wolf. *** But enough of this. I salute you my good friend, with a thousand salutations of respect and admiration. I do not agree with you in all things, but I cannot tell you how much I glorify you for your courage and devotion to womanhood. I am a pretty poor stick for anything like good work in the world, but I am not without respect for it in others. And so I present myself to yourself and to your good and noble husband whom I take to be one of the best, with every assurance of affection and esteem. Thanking you for your kind letter, I remain, dear madam,
"Yours very truly,R. D. Hubbard."