Page:History of Woman Suffrage Volume 3.djvu/786

Rh In 1848, while those immortal women whose names will be found on many another page of the volume in which this chapter is included, were asking in the convention at Seneca Falls, N. Y., that their equal membership in the human family might be admitted by their husbands, fathers and sons, Colorado, unnamed and unthought of, was still asleep with her head above the clouds, Only two mountain-tops in all the world were nearer heaven than hers, and they, in far Thibet, had seen the very beginnings of the race which, after six thousand years, had not yet penetrated Colorado. Islanded in a cruel brown ocean of sand, she hid her treasures of gold and silver in her virgin bosom and dreamed, unstirred by any echoes of civilization. When she woke at last it was to the sound of an anvil chorus—to the ring of the mallet and drill, and the hoarse voices of men greedy only for gold.

In 1858, when the Ninth National Convention of women to demand their legal rights was in session in New York, there were only three white women in the now rich and beautiful city of Denver. Still another ten years of wild border life, of fierce vicissitudes, of unwritten tragedies enacted in forest and mine, and Colorado was organized into a territory with a population of 5,000 women and 25,000 men.

The first effort for suffrage was made in 1870, during the fifth session of the legislative assembly, soon after General Edward McCook was sent out by President Grant to fill the gubernatorial chair. In his message to the legislature, he promptly recommended to the attention of its members the question of suffrage for woman:

Before dismissing the subject of franchise, I desire to call your attention to one question connected with it, which you may deem of sufficient importance to demand some consideration at your hands before the close of the session. Our higher civilization has recognized woman's equality with man in all respects save one—suffrage. It has been said that no great reform was ever made without passing through three stages—ridicule, argument, and adoption. It rests with you to say whether Colorado will accept this reform in its first stage, as our sister territory of Wyoming has done, or in the last; whether she will be a leader or a follower; for the logic of a progressive civilization leads to the inevitable result of a universal suffrage.

This was the first gun of the campaign, and summoned to the field various contending forces, armed with ridicule, argument, or an optimistic diplomacy, urging an immediate surrender of the ground claimed. Bills favoring the enfranchisement of women were discussed both in the Territorial Council Chamber and in the lower House of the legislature. The subject was taken up by the press and the people, and not escaping its meed of ridicule, was seriously dealt with by both friend and enemy. Perhaps the western champions of woman's recognition as an intelligent part of the body politic were brought to understand the full meaning of her disabilities by their own experiences as territorial minors. Certain it is that the high spirit of the citizens of Colorado chafed intolerably under the temporary limitations of accustomed rights of sovereign manhood. The federal government, in the capacity of regent, sent to these territorial wards their officers and governors and fixed the rate of their taxation without full representation. These wards were indeed empowered, as were the people of their sister territories, to elect a delegate to the