Page:History of Woman Suffrage Volume 3.djvu/376

 

Senator Anthony in North American Review—Convention in Providence-Work of State Association—Report of Elizabeth B. Chace-Miss Ida Lewis—Letter of Frederick A. Hinckley—Last Words from Senator Anthony.

, though one of the smallest, is, in proportion to the number of its inhabitants, one of the wealthiest states in the Union. In political organization Rhode Island, in colonial times, contrasted favorably with the other colonies, nearly all of which required a larger property qualifiation, and some a religious test for the suffrage. The home of Roger Williams knew nothing of such narrowness, but was an asylum for those who suffered persecution elsewhere. Nevertheless this is now, in many respects, the most conservative of all the States.

In the November number of the North American Review for 1883, Senator Anthony, in an article on the restricted suffrage in Rhode Island, stoutly maintains that suffrage is not a natural. right, and that in adhering to her property qualification for foreigners his State has wisely protected the best interests of the people. In his whole argument on the question, he ignores the idea of women being a part of the people, and ranks together qualifications of sex, age, and residence. He quite unfairly attributes much of Rhode Island's prosperity—the result of many causes—to her restricted suffrage. His position in this article, written so late in life, is the more remarkable as he had always spoken and voted in his place in the United States Senate (where he had served nearly thirty years) strongly in favor of woman's enfranchisement. And the Providence Journal, which he owned and controlled, was invariably respectful and complimentary towards the movement.

While such a man as Senator Anthony, one of the political leaders in his State, regarded suffrage as a privilege which society may concede or withhold at pleasure, we need not wonder that