Women's rights

“ No more practical or tremendous revolution was ever sought in society, than that which this Woman's Rights Convention inaugurates. To emancipate half the human race from its present position of dependence on the other half; to abolish every distinction between the sexes that can be abolished, or which is maintained by statute or conventional usage; to throw open all the employments of society with equal freedom to men and women ”

“ 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? ”

“ 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. ”

“ The American Woman Suffrage Association, in its seventh annual meeting assembled, re-affirm the great self-evident principle of equal rights for women, and demand its practical application in the public and private life of the nation. We declare that women who obey laws should have a voice in their enactment; that women who pay taxes should have a voice in their expenditure. We protest against the subjection and disenfranchisement of woman as injurious to society, destructive of morals, corrupting to politics, and a reproach to civilization. ”

“ 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 ”

“ These Women's Rights Conventions appear to me to have ventilated crudities, absurdities, and blasphemies. To hear them talk about men, one would suppose that the two sexes were natural born enemies, and wonders whether they ever had fathers and brothers. ”

“ Resolved, That what we do seek is to gain these rights and privileges for those women who wish to enjoy them, and so to change public opinion that it shall not be deemed indecorous for women to engage in any occupation which they deem fitted to their habits and talents.
3. Resolved, That the fundamental principle of the Woman's Rights movement is—that every human being, without distinction of sex, has an inviolable right to the full development and free exercise of all energies; and that in every sphere of life, private and public, Functions should always be commensurate with Powers. ”

“ I hate the words "woman's rights," nor do they properly describe my treatment of the question which, in my mind, is not one of sex but of humanity. My lecture is a plea for the recognition of the equal humanity of women and an assertion that 168 they have rights not as women but as human beings. ”

“ We go further and express our conviction that all political rights, which it is expedient for man to exercise, it is equally so for women. All that distinguishes man as an intelligent and accountable being is equally true of woman; and if that government only is just which governs only by the free consent of the governed, there can be no reason in the world for denying to woman the exercise of the elective franchise, or a hand in making and administering the laws of the land. Our doctrine is that ‘Right is of no sex.’ We, therefore, bid the women engaged in this movement our humble Godspeed. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ And this law was made by men; and it was not until the agitation of the woman’s-rights question by women, and their exposure of the injustice of the laws and their demands for redress of grievances, that changes were made in their favor. ”

“ But to see the three chief figures of this great movement of Woman's Rights sitting upon a stage in joint council, like the three Parcæ or Fates of a new dispensation—dignity and the ever-acceptable grace of scholarly earnestness, intelligence, and beneficence making them prominent—is assurance that the women of our country, bereft of defenders, or injured by false ones, have advocates equal to the great demands of their cause. ”

“ But in the slow development of the great principles of freedom, you, and all, have failed both to recognize and appreciate this right; but to-day, when the rights and responsibilities of women are attracting the attention of thoughtful minds throughout the whole civilized world, this constitutional right, so long unobserved and unvalued, is becoming one of prime importance, and calls upon all women who love their children and their country to accept and rejoice in it. ”

“ Before I present the history of the progress of women's rights in the United States, I shall place before the reader some extracts which are typical and truly representative of the opposition which from the beginning of the agitation to the present day has voiced itself in all ranks of life. Let the reader bear carefully in mind that from 1837 to the beginning of the twentieth century such abuse as that which I shall quote as typical was hurled from ten thousand throats of men and women unceasingly ”

“ Those critics, and there are many, who argue that women must submit to restrictions upon their freedom for the good of the State, as well as those advocates of woman’s rights who argue that women must be emancipated for the good of the State, simply fail to make this vital distinction between the State and Society; and their failure to do so is one of the potent reasons why the nonsense that has been written about women is limited only by the literature of the subject. ”

“ But those who denounced and ridiculed them builded better than they knew, for then and there was laid the corner-stone of that temple of equal rights for women, which has been built upon by so many brave hearts and willing hands since, and has brought to the front such staunch supporters and brilliant advocates as now adorn every convention of the Woman's Rights Associations. ”

“ Seventh Motion — Where the men are still subjects, the liberty and rights of women are entirely out of the question. Only in a republic is there any possibility of demanding and attaining the rights of women. ”

“ What rights, it may be asked, ought women to have accorded to them which they do not now enjoy according to law? From what rights does custom debar them? We claim that women, being held equally responsible to the law with men, are as well entitled to have a voice in making that law. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Broadly speaking, that for which we are fighting now is the emancipation of woman; her social freedom; her intellectual freedom; her economic freedom; her political freedom; and we believe that it is through the attainment of the rights of citizenship that all these doors will be opened to us.
I wish now, briefly, to show what, as I believe, the effect would be on society generally and on woman primarily if these her demands were granted; what, in fact, woman will be in the new era. ”

“ 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." ”

“ Are women persons? And I hardly believe any of our opponents will have the hardihood to say they are not. Being persons, then, women are citizens; and no state has a right to make any law, or to enforce any old law, that shall abridge their privileges or immunities. ”

“ 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 ”

“ Unfortunately for the rapidity of women’s advancement, women themselves have no thoroughness, no clearness, as to the fundamental cause of their grievances or the ends to be attained, and are not yet alive to a consciousness of the fact that the question of woman’s rights is simply and purely a question of human rights, the basic solution of which, on the broad plane of justice, will solve all the social, political, and industrial problems of which the woman question forms a part. ”

“ She saw women's struggle for freedom from legal restrictions as an important phase in the development of American democracy. To her this struggle was never a battle of the sexes, but a battle such as any freedom-loving people would wage for civil and political rights. ”

“ We hear a great deal about laws for the protection of women; but we cannot urge too often the remark of James Davis in his Prize Essay of 1854, "that all early legislation for woman was founded, not on her own rights, but on those of her husband and children, and the State over her." ”

“ It may be pointed out—for it is not always realized—that even that stage of civilization—when it occurs—which involves the subordination and subjection of woman and her rights really has its origin in the need for the protection of women, and is sometimes even a sign of the acquirement of new privileges by women. ”

“ To repeal all national penal provisions which constitute discrimination against women. Article 3
States Parties shall take in all fields, in particular in the political, social, economic and cultural fields, all appropriate measures, including legislation, to ensure the full development and
advancement of women, for the purpose of guaranteeing them the exercise and enjoyment of human rights and fundamental freedoms on a basis of equality with men. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Woman's Rights, or the movement that goes under that name, may seem to some too trifling in itself and too much connected with ludicrous associations to be made the subject of serious arguments. If nothing else, however, should give it consequence, it would demand our earnest attention from its intimate connection with all the radical and infidel movements of the day. ”

“ 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? ”

“ The latest modern invention, which we fear will plague the inventors, is the proposition that women are entitled to the same "privileges" as men in conducting political affairs, and in all offices of honor and emolument now monopolized by the "sterner sex." This heresy has been christened by the seductive cognomen of "Woman's Rights." ”

“ The demand for political rights of women is discussed, rightly no doubt, upon grounds of justice, and takes us to some knotty points. Does justice imply the equality of the sexes; and, if so, in what sense of "equality"? And, beyond this, we come to the question, What would be the bearing of our principles upon the institution of marriage, and upon the family bond? No question can be more important, or more vitally connected with Ethics. ”

“ Besides this emancipation, however, there is still the conventional, the moral, the economic, the religious, etc., to be aspired to, the object of which must always be only to establish the liberty and the right of women within the limits prescribed by the feminine nature, and to protect them against the invasions and the commands of men, or to abolish woman's dependence on the will of the men, and finally also to place woman in a position to freely act out her true nature by means of every aid. ”