Page:History of Woman Suffrage Volume 2.djvu/440

414 publicists have expressed the opinion that all the people should have a voice. In the debates in the Illinois Convention, now in session, members refused to swear to support the State Constitution, because, said they, "it is absurd to swear to support what we are now tearing to pieces. We are doing an elementary work, and are amenable to the Federal Constitution alone."

Ever since the abolition of slavery, the District has been resolved into its original elements. In fact by the war, and the revision of the Federal Constitution, the nation, too, has been resolved into its original elements, and the women have to-day, the right to say on what basis the District, their several States, and the nation shall be reconstructed. We think, honorable gentlemen, you must all see the broad application of this principle. And if all the people should have a voice in the revision of a State or national constitution, women must be included. The Constitution confers, by express grant upon Congress, "exclusive jurisdiction in all cases whatsoever," for the purposes of government. Under this grant Congress, by the first section of the act of January 8, 1867, enacted that each and every male person of the age of twenty-one years, who shall have been born or naturalized in the United States, who shall have resided in the said District for the period of one year, and three months in the ward or election precinct in which he shall offer to vote, shall be entitled to the elective franchise, and shall be deemed an elector, and entitled to vote. This act, you perceive, recognizes the pre-existing right of all persons, and excludes women only by the use of the word male, unless, as Hamilton says, "silence on that point is not abolition."

It is fitting that here, under the shadow of the national capitol, under the control of the Federal Government, where the black man was first emancipated and enfranchised, that the experiment of a true republicanism should be tried, by securing to woman, too, the rights of an American citizen.

addressed the Committee as follows: We are here for the express purpose of urging you to present in your respective bodies, a bill to strike the word "male" from the District of Columbia Suffrage Act, and thereby enfranchise the women of the District. We ask that the experiment of woman suffrage shall be tried here, under the eye of Congress, as was that of negro suffrage. Indeed, the District has ever been made the experimental ground of each step toward freedom. The auction-block was here first banished, slavery was here first abolished, the newly-made freemen were here first enfranchised; and we now ask that the women shall here be first admitted to the ballot. There was great fear and trepidation all over the country as to the results of negro suffrage, and you deemed it right and safe to inaugurate the experiment here; and you all remember that three days discussion in 1866 on Senator Cowan's proposition to amend the Senate bill by striking out the word "male;" the able speeches of Cowan, Anthony, Gratz Brown, Wade, and the Senate's nine votes for the amendment. Well do I remember with what anxious hope we watched the daily reports of that debate, and how we prayed that Congress might then declare for the establishment in this District of a real, practical republic. But conscience, or courage, or something was wanting, and women were bidden still to wait.

When, on that March day of 1867, the negroes of the District first voted, with what anxiety did the people wait, and with what joy did they read the glad tidings, flashed over the wires the following morn-