Blackwell. The following session was principally devoted to the hearing of the reports from the auxiliary societies. The delegates, 159 in number, represented twelve States.
Rev. Charles G. Ames, of Pennsylvania, in reply to Mrs. Stone, said he thought it both impolitic and unreasonable to come into collision with the awakening spirit of the country in the matter of the Centennial. The American Revolution did great things for us all, woman included; and although it did not give her a political status, yet it established organic principles which make woman suffrage possible, logical and ultimately certain. No event has yet brought suffrage to woman; shall she therefore regard all history up to date as a failure, as if there were nothing in it worth celebrating? Rather may we rejoice that all the past is a series of steps leading up to the present; and still we mount! Woman suffrage is present in the institutions of our country as a germ; it is growing. In not affirming it the fathers did no conscious or intentional wrong; and only a few cultivated women of the Revolutionary period, like Mrs. Adams and a lady friend of Richard Henry Lee, felt the inconsistency of affirming the equality of all human beings and then ignoring half of them. But in days of war and slavery, Mr. Seward said, "Liberty is in the Union"; so we may say, Suffrage is in the Union. The negroes who fought for the Union, while it was only a white man's Union, were winning their own enfranchisement; the women who celebrate American Independence are doing honor to principles which will some day bring justice to all the inhabitants of the land.
The discussions on this subject of suffrage have disclosed to the American people their own low estimate of the ballot, as a coarse and uncertain instrument for procuring only coarse and doubtful benefits. They ought to thank us for bringing to light this dangerous skepticism, and for compelling attention to those deeper principles of justice and equality which alone can work the timely cure. To refuse to follow those principles when their new application becomes obvious, is to give up the Republic.
Yet there has been a relative decline of politics. The "powers that be," or the ruling forces of the country are not seated alone at Washington and the State capitals; new and mightier lawgivers have arisen. Civilization has come to include and employ other than political agents for the maintenance of order and the promotion of welfare. The power of opinion as generated by education, literature, religion, business or social life, and as announced through the press, and propagated in the widening circles of personal influence—this rules the rulers and masters the country. Thus, within the nation and fostered by its freedom, there has grown up a grander republic of thought and sentiment, which has also blossomed into many a fair institution. Of this more glorious republic, woman is a welcome and unquestioned citizen. Her opportunities for self-help and for helping others, her share in the common burdens and her dividend of the common benefits, must be far larger, in our country and now, than in any other land or time. All this, the thoughtful friends of suffrage will gladly admit.
But does this concession belittle the importance of woman's political rights? Exactly not! A part in the government becomes important to any class in proportion as they become large stockholders in common affairs and as they become aware of their own interests and their own powers. The