Karl Heinzen

“ It is our pride, as well as our consolation, that humanity alone, and not iron, can free us from tyranny, and you from your lies. The triumph of weakness over strength, through the sentiments of humanity, that is the ‘surest and noblest triumph that we can think of, and can wish for, and this triumph is exclusively feminine.
It is a lie, therefore, when men deny our equality of rights, and it is a daughter of this lie, when they, instead of acknowledging their own unfitness for a state of humane equality, try to make it appear as though we were not yet adapted to equality. ”

“ Even such times seem to be past for us. Men who are no longer ashamed of each other will feel no shame before women. Then let us feel ashamed for them. To feel ashamed for you, whom we ought to love, that is the severest punishment that we can conceive of for you; but it is no less severe for us.
It makes me sad, unto apathy, when I see how vainly, how hopelessly every nobler aspiration strives, to merely keep alive the humane qualities, — to say nothing at all of progressive development, — which our German emigration has brought over with it. ”

“ If you do not yet wish, or are not yet able, to grant woman equal rights in public life, you can ‘at least accustom yourself, in social life, not to degrade her by a morality, which, among yourselves, would amount to an actual declaration of war. So long as a dishonorable and unscrupulous act, directed against us, has not the same value to you as when it is directed against yourselves, you show that you do not consider us as responsible human beings, that you are our tyrants in life, as you are in politics, and that all your assurances to the contrary are simply lies. ”

“ When do we ever hear of one remarkable intellect, one superior character among the hundreds of sons of which a Sultan or lord of a harem can boast? And yet their mothers are the most charming, the choicest specimens of their sex; and yet their fathers have all the means at their disposal to give their sons every opportunity for the development of their faculties. Even if these fathers were all men of genius, the sons would nevertheless be born stupid and degraded because all higher nature, all intellectual life has been killed in the mothers by the customary degradation and slavery. ”

“ Remember that the poor wretch cries for an "office," that he wants to become Governor, Ambassador, Senator, how can he be expected to entrust his destiny to the future of a society that has as yet no "office" at its disposal, except perhaps the position of President or Secretary of a woman's convention? No, let us not be cruel, above all things! But I know of no greater cruelty than to expect a "practical statesman" to risk his "office" in a ruling party, and his reputation, as a successful man, by identifying himself with a principle that has still to win a party and to create a power. ”

“ I would quietly leave him to his society if I were not compelled to also see in him a representative of a great number of men, who have not lived among savages and courtiers, but in civilized circles. May it be made known to these gentlemen that we thoroughly detest and abominate their entire chivalry, of which they seem so proud. It is nothing but a mask for brutality and vulgarity. If it were a disinterested virtue and an outcome of their humanity, how could they have the barbaric arrogance to demand as its price, a renunciation of human rights? ”

“ There is no true beauty which is not permeated with intelligence, and there is nothing more glorious in the world than a beautiful woman of intellect. But how many men have enough intellect, masculine and humane intellect, not to fear the feminine intellect where they extol and demand feminine beauty? Are not most of them inclined to attach the suspicion of unwomanliness to the intellectual endowments of a woman, merely because their instinct tells them that a gifted woman can and must lay claim to a higher position, and greater respect, than that of a slave to man? ”

“ Is it perhaps more manly "to lie at the feet" of a being who is our inferior in rights than of one who is our equal? I should like to hear such a prostrate model of manliness deliver one of his usual declamations on the "feminine sphere," at the moment when, with humble mien, he is bending his knee before his adored. The sovereign master kneeling before the disfranchised slave, from whom, by cringing flattery, he would obtain a gracious smile, in order, later on, to turn against her as the brutal tyrant, the heartless deceiver! ”

“ In drawing up our resolutions we have gone back to nature, this fountain head of all knowledge, to open men's eyes to the barbaric prejudice that permeates all his opinions, habits and laws, and through which he has deemed himself justified in conducting himself as the lord and owner of his fellow-beings of the feminine sex. Not until he has become entirely conscious of this prejudice, not until he has learned to recognize in the subordination of woman the debasement of his own race and humanity, will he be able to grant equal rights to us honestly and completely. ”

“ Is not the spirit that is sensitive to happiness at the same time so sensitive to unhappiness that its environment here turns everything into bitterness? Who, indeed, can be happy in walking over this battlefield of insensibility where hearts are broken like glass, and human happiness trampled upon like vermin! How many a soul perishes in this country, friendless and unknown, how many a one carries its woe in silence to the grave, because it has once for all resigned itself not to find here any sympathy or appreciation! ”

“ Is it manly by means of intrigue and hypocrisies, to indulge in a vain ambition, that finds higher satisfaction in external position, than in the consciousness of inner worth? Is it manly to devote all the activities of life merely to base gain, that leaves no inclination and no strength for nobler aspirations? Is it manly to flee from sensual enjoyment after the fashion of the ascetic, and is it manly to sink into debauchery? Is it manly to be a slave to woman, and is it manly to be a woman-hater? ”

“ What has become of that large emigration which once filled our fatherland with the battle-cry against tyrants? Are those men who forgot liberty as soon as it was vanquished? Are those men who, on the other side of the sea, swore eternal hatred against tyranny, and in this country are so lost to shame that they unite with the owners of human beings for the purpose of undermining the republic? ”

“ I can very easily conceive of a state of society — indeed, I cannot conceive of a better future without a state of society in which the increase of humanity through the birth of a healthy child, sprung from free marriage, is considered not only as no misfortune and no disgrace, but as a piece of good fortune and an honor; in which a free sexual union controlled by no law and no police will have crowded out all hypocrisy and all prostitution ”

“ We are true to ideas as we are to persons. But, you men can forget and betray everything for which you once seemed to glow, not singly, not by tens and dozens, not only a hundred fold; thousands and thousands of you turn your backs upon liberty, cast your ballot for slavery, and — are not ashamed! Truly, you men are not merely liars, you are also slaves! Are you not base by nature? ”

“ And now the aesthetic reflections to which such a hairy god of the muses would stimulate us, if, with the help of the achievements of our modern civilization, we should equip him: with all the consequences of a beard, among others such as remnants of food adhering from the just completed divine meal, flavored with the juice of the Olympian cigar, smoked after dessert, and perfumed with infernal tobacco-smoke—and then imagine this divine mouth, enriched by this threefold cosmetic, pressed upon the unsoiled lips of a horrified muse. Alas, our women submit to such kisses without being horrified. ”

“ While, for instance, American women make the mistake of attempting the confirmation of their rights by religious authorities, our special object is to show that religion itself — this eternal enemy of nature and free humanity — contains the root of the tyranny, which has ever degraded one-half of humanity to be the servant and slave of the other half. Only nature and reason can assign us our proper place; all religions begin and end with our degradation, but especially the Christian religion, the most unnatural and inhuman of all. Have Christians ever doubted the human nature of male man? ”

“ Let all despotism with its supporters, all aristocracy of wealth with its representatives, all religious humbug with its priests, be recommended to the hatred and the abhorrence of the women; let liberty with its champions, socialism with its apostles, reason with its teachers, appeal to the love and sympathy of all women of right thought and noble feeling, whose striving, whose interests, whose happiness, whose future do indeed lie only in the path of these revolutionary motors. ”

“ Is it immoral that a woman should bear a child to her beloved? No! Why do you cast her out, then? You are the immoral ones, the barbarians. You will demand that the trees shall be ashamed to blossom and to bear fruit.
The human being who is ashamed of his nature is not worthy to be a human being. What reasonable ground can you preachers of morality find for shame which you, under the conditions which you have decreed, connect with sexual love and the act which causes the existence of man? ”

“ In Europe it is the banner of the revolution, in America the banner of radical democracy, which leads the hosts on towards the time when the free woman can proudly rejoice by the side of the freeman. On the grave of the tyrants blooms your liberty, from the ruins of aristocracy arise your rights. Therefore follow the banner of the revolution in Europe, and the banner of radical democracy in America! ”

“ To the great annoyance of our musical or music-making German countrymen I once asked the question: "Need a musician have brains?" At the risk of incurring the illwill of the entire fair sex, I would like, in reviewing the great majority of our present female world, to put the question: "Must a woman have brains?" When I began my campaign of the so-called emancipation of woman in New York, twenty-two years ago, a German woman said to me: "What do you want with this‘emancipation? We women do not need to be emancipated. If my husband beats me, I scratch his eyes out." ”

“ Free love, rightly understood, is nothing else than free marriage, that is, true marriage; but the conception of such a marriage completely excludes those abominations, which male egotism and male corruption try to connect with woman's free choice, in order to keep her in servitude by a false idea of duty. Whoever wishes to bind a woman by another tie than that of her free love, and thinks of deserving this love by something else than his own worthiness and reciprocal affection, is as much fool as despot, and has no idea of the most beautiful relationship, for which nature has fitted mankind. ”

“ This is the simple statement of what I understand by freedom in love, which is the only means of securing what has now become so rare — a true marriage and a happy family life. Let him who does not agree with me have the courage to postulate the opposite and declare, that those who do not love each other ought to be united, and to be kept together by force, those who love each other ought to be separated and to be kept apart by force — both in the interest of humanity and human happiness! ”

“ Will love, after all these concessions are made to it, be sufficient to fill out an entire life? Can it, even if it outlasts the honeymoon and the time which might suffice to test the possibility of an illusion, — can it satisfy the heart so long that its value will not be lost in the need for change which would finally lead to an anarchy of the affections? ”

“ Does this not prove the shameful fact that the entire male sex, in blind egotism, insists on the same thousand-year-old, historical wrong, for the senseless and wicked allegation of which we have always reproach feudalists and princes? The thorough destruction of this egotism, the complete renunciation of every privilege, and the free union of the sovereign woman with the sovereign man that will result from it, will usher in a new, a nobler, more beautiful and happier life for humanity. ”

“ What model specimens of manliness! Any little goose with a pretty face can daily amuse herself with putting a grim-bearded lord of creation to the test, and then avenge her disfranchisement upon him by a scornful refusal. Indeed, nowhere does this proud manliness, that rises with so much sovereign dignity above the disfranchised woman, suffer shipwreck more frequently and more wretchedly, than in his dealings with this weak woman, without whom the "strong sex" would feel so desperately lonely that it would have to curse its own existence. ”

“ Because a woman perhaps cannot be a minister of finance, must the man therefore be her financial guardian? Because a woman is less fitted for a scholar and philosopher, shall education therefore be forbidden ground to her? Because a woman, in a word, cannot be a man, must she therefore be less a human being and a citizen than man? I admit that besides the physical strength and the warlike passion there are still other qualities of mind and character which in a hundred situations capacitate the man for the work of history where the woman is unable to act. ”