Page:History of Woman Suffrage Volume 5.djvu/424

 Mrs. Catt gave particulars from each and said the only ones where it had not been discussed were those of Germany, Austria, Turkey and the United States. This assertion stung the committee and Representative Hardwick (Ga.) asked if there was not the wide difference that in this country State laws reached the suffrage while in others the Parliament regulated the vote, and she answered: "Of course there is that difference but I wish to add my opinion to that of Miss Addams, that while the States have the right to extend the vote it is the most outrageously unfair process through which any class of unenfranchised citizens of any land have ever been called upon to obtain their enfranchisement and that is the reason why we come to Congress. The overwhelming majority of the men of this country have not secured their suffrage by any vote at the polls in the States. The only class that I have ever been able to find in our history so enfranchised are the working men in the original thirteen colonies, and they got the vote by the process long ago when the population was exceedingly small. There are more men today voting on the basis of their citizenship under naturalization than for any other reason and yet our State constitutions compel us to go to these men and ask our vote at their hands. They say whether the women who have been born and bred here and educated in our schools shall have the vote. We believe we have the right to have our question considered by Congress and that is why we ask for a special committee."

A spirited discussion followed in which the 15th Amendment played a part and Mr. Hardwick said all the women had to do in order to vote was to add the word "sex" to it and Dr. Shaw answered: "This would require a constitutional amendment and what we are asking is such an amendment to our National Constitution, which shall forbid the States to deprive women citizens of the right which it grants to every man born in the United States and to every man imported from any country under the light of the sun. No nation has subjected its women to the humiliating position occupied by those of this nation today. There is no race which is not represented in the citizenship of this country and these citizens are made the governing power which determines the destinies of our women. While women are dis-