Women's rights convention

“ It was Susan, however, who put the machinery in motion through the National Woman Suffrage Association and issued a call for an international conference in Washington, in March 1888, to commemorate the fortieth anniversary of the first woman's rights convention. Ten thousand invitations were sent out to organizations of women in all parts of the world, to professional, business, and reform groups as well as to those advocating political and civil rights for women, and an ambitious program was prepared. ”

“ Strong as is the Constitutional argument for woman suffrage, I nevertheless hope that your convention will not tolerate the idea of measuring the rights of woman by a man-made constitution. Have you heard of a State in which women and women only bear rule, and the constitution of which was made by women only? ”

“ Under that call, the Woman's State Society of New York, an active and efficient body, sent delegates; but though regularly elected, their credentials were rejected with scorn. The chairman of the committee reported that those who called the meeting never intended to include women. Think of it, a World's Convention, in which woman is voted not of the world!!
Rev. Dr. Hewitt affirmed it a burning shame for women to be there; and though it was entirely out of order, he discussed the question of "Woman's Rights," taking the ground that women should be nowhere but at home. ”

“ Considering that the peoples of the United nations are determined to promote equality of right of men and women, in conformity with the principles embodied in the Charter,
Believing that an international convention on the political rights of women will constitute an important towards the universal attainment of equal rights of men and women,
Reaffirming its resolution 56 (I) of 11 December 1946,
Decides to open the attached Convention for signatures and ratification at the end of the present session. ”

“ Perhaps it was because the question was not agitated, and because it did not particularly concern the males, that they did not turn their attention to it; but when agitated in the Women's Rights Conventions that have been so abused and ridiculed throughout the country, man could no longer shut his eyes to the glaring defects that existed in our system, and our Legislature has corrected many of those abuses, and placed the rights of the female upon infinitely higher grounds than they occupied there thirty years ago ”

“ The Convention affirms the reproductive rights fo women, supports women's political and economic rights, and highlights the importance of eradicating violence against women. Ratifying this treaty will make the U.S. a more active ally in the international fight to eradicate violence against women, and it will serve as a model that can inspire individual states to take steps to reduce violence against women. ”

“ Two bills, however, now lie before Congress proposing to array the fundamental law of the land against the multitude of American women by ordaining a denial of the political rights of a whole sex. To this injustice we object totally! Such an amendment is a snap judgment before discussion; it is an obstacle to future progress; it is a gratuitous bruise inflicted on the most tender and humane sentiment that has ever entered into American politics. If the present Congress is not called to legislate for the rights of women, let it not legislate against them. ”

“ The right to the enjoyment of liberty is one of those perfect, inherent, and inalienable rights which pertain to the whole human race, and of which they can never be divested, except by an act of gross injustice." If we would rightly estimate the wretchedness in which the perpetration of this "act of gross injustice" has involved one sixth part of the population of Republican America, we must compare the condition of our slaves with that of the freemen of their own age and country. ”

“ We do not design to attribute unhallowed motives to all who engaged in this crusade against the rights and happiness of free American citizens; many, we believe, like our beloved brother, Gerrit Smith, embarked in this enterprise without examining the principles of the Society, deluded by the false, though plausible assertion, that the colored man could not rise in his native land to an equality with his white compatriots, and desirous to do them all the good that circumstances admitted. ”

“ When women are denied the right to enter institutions of learning, and practice in the professions, unjust discriminations made against sex even more degrading and humiliating than were ever made against color, surely woman, too, should be protected by a civil-rights bill and a sixteenth amendment that should make her political status equal with all other citizens of the republic. ”

“ But while in theory our government recognizes the rights of all people, in practice it is far behind the Declaration of Independence and the national constitution. On what just ground is discrimination made between men and women? Why should women, more than men, be governed without their own consent? Why should women, more than men, be denied trial by a jury of their peers? On what authority are women taxed while unrepresented? By what right do men declare themselves invested with power to legislate for women? ”

“ Today, an historic number of women in Congress in a bipartisan vote—under the leadership of our historic Speaker — expressed their support for a principle in which I also deeply believe: that in the United States of America, no one’s rights should be denied on account of their sex. ”

“ Rose said: The remarks of the president have impressed us to do our duty with all the earnestness in our power. This is termed a woman's rights movement. Alas! that the painful necessity should exist, for woman's calling a Convention to claim her rights from those who have been created to go hand in hand, and heart in heart with her; whose interests can not be divided from hers. Why does she claim them? Because every human being has a right to all the advantages society has to bestow, if his having them does not injure the rights of others. ”

“ We mention as an example worthy of imitation the noble individuals who took the lead at Lane Seminary in contending for the rights of our colored citizens, and when their work there was accomplished, went among their colored brethren and sisters, and met them as equals bearing the impress of that God who stampt his image on his creature man. If each of our seminaries could boast of such champions of Human Rights, our colleges and schools might soon be regenerated, and our temples of science be thrown open to all our citizens irrespective of color or condition. ”

“ The injustice and absurdity of allowing women in one State to be sovereign rulers, and across the line in every direction obliging them to occupy the position of a subject class, taxed without representation and governed without consent—and this in a nation which by its Constitution guarantees equal rights to all the States and equal protection to all their citizens—must soon be manifest even to the most conservative and prejudiced. We therefore congratulate the friends of woman suffrage everywhere that at last there is one spot under the American flag where equal justice is done to women. ”

“ The Woman's Rights Conventions, which, since 1848, have been so frequently held in New York, Ohio, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, etc., have aroused respectful attention, and secured earnest sympathy, throughout the United States. It becomes the advocates of the Equal Rights of Women, then, to take advantage of this wide-spread interest and to press the Reform, at once, onward to practical results. ”

“ What has been done by petition proves the power to do more by the same means, and the fact that much of the best legislation has been against the demand of the Suffragists or in precedence of it, proves that the rights of women are in hands that are capable of meeting fresh interests as they arise.
Every profession and business is open to women to exactly the same extent as to men, and already women have found a place in law, medicine, architecture, journalism, and other professions. ”

“ It has not been a struggle to define the rights of women in relation to their special place in the societal structure and in relation to the biological distinction between the two sexes. Thus, women's needs and aspirations are only now being translated into protected rights. ”

“ Hence we shall not discuss the very grave and important social and political questions which have arisen from the agitation to admit to equal political rights the women of our country, and to impose on them the burden of discharging, equally with men, political and public duties. Whether so radical a change in our political and social system would advance the happiness and welfare of the American people, considered as a whole, without distinction of sex, is a question on which there is a marked disagreement among the most enlightened and thoughtful of both sexes. ”

“ Resolved, That we believe in the political equality of the sexes, and we call on the legislature to submit such an amendment to the people for adoption or rejection, to the constitution of the State as will secure to women equal political rights. ”

“ FURTHER CONSIDERING that Article 18 of the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights calls on all States Parties to eliminate every discrimination against women and to ensure the protection of the rights of women as stipulated in international declarations and conventions ”

“ Hence they turned their attention to rolling up petitions for the civil and political rights of women, to hearings before legislatures and constitutional conventions, giving their most persistent efforts to the reform technically called "Woman's Rights." ”

“ Although the unanswerable arguments of statesmen and lawyers in the halls of congress and the Supreme Court of the United States, had alike proved unavailing in establishing the civil and political rights of women on a national basis, their efforts had not been in vain. ”

“ And yet the highest judicial authorities have decided that the spirit and letter of our national constitution are not broad enough to protect woman in her political rights; and for the redress of her wrongs [Pg 59] they remand her to the State. If our Magna Charta of human rights can be thus narrowed by judicial interpretations in favor of class legislation, then must we demand an amendment that, in clear, unmistakable language, shall declare the equality of all citizens before the law.
Women are citizens, first of the United States, and second of the State wherein they reside ”

“ There we halt to-day and stand at a deadlock, so far as the application of our theory may go. We women have been standing before the American republic for thirty years, asking the men to take yet one step further and extend the practical application of the theory of equality of rights to all the people to the other half of the people—the women. ”

“ The legal rights of an American woman—for instance, her right to her own property, as against a squandering husband; or her right to her own children, as against a malicious father—have grown, year by year, into a more generous and just statement in American laws. This beautiful result is owing in great measure to the persistent efforts of many noble women who, for years past, both publicly and privately, both by pen and speech, have appealed to legislative committees, and to the whole community, for an enlargement of the legal and civil status of their fellow-country women. ”

“ This year we also mark the 35th anniversary of another hard-fought victory for women's equality: the enactment of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which-among other things-prohibits employment discrimination on the basis of gender. Title VII guarantees women equal access to jobs, promotions, pay, and benefits, empowering them to provide for themselves and their families and to achieve their highest aspirations. ”

“ It is claimed that from the absence of any express limitation in the present constitution, and from the compulsory exclusion of the parties interested from its adoption, the political rights of women under the old constitution still remain. ”

“ Even those who do not look upon a voice in the government as a matter of personal right, nor profess principles which require that it should be extended to all, have usually traditional maxims of political justice, with which it is impossible to reconcile the exclusion of all women from the common rights of citizenship. ”

“ Our concern for equal rights for women is firm and unshakable. We launched a new Task Force on Legal Equity for Women and a Fifty States Project that will examine State laws for discriminatory language. And for the first time in our history, a woman sits on the highest court in the land. ”

“ Our State is to form a new constitution this spring. I feel that now if ever is the time to strike for woman's emancipation. 'We, the people' includes women as well as men, and regardless of former legislative enactments we should be allowed to vote and be voted for as delegates to the constitutional convention. If I only had some one to aid me, or had your moral courage, I would proclaim myself a candidate for the constitutional convention. The colored people ought to sustain me for I have ever been their steadfast friend, and they themselves owe their emancipation chiefly to women. ”

“ The Republican party recognizes, with approval, the substantial advances recently made towards the establishment of equal rights for women by the many important amendments effected by Republican legislatures in the laws which concern the personal and property relations of wives, mothers, and widows, and the appointment and election of women to the superintendence of education, charities, and other public trusts. ”