Part 16

As the nation has grown to know the needs of liberty, it has from time to time thrown new safeguards around it, as I have shown in its fifteen progressive steps since 1776. For sixty years there was no change. Slavery had cast its blight upon our country, and the struggle was for State supremacy. Men forgot the rights, and need of freedom; but in 1861, the climax was reached, and then came the bitter struggle between state and national power. Although our underlying principles were all right, freedom required new guards, and the right of all men to liberty, was put in a new form. An especial statute or amendment was added to our National Constitution, declaring that involuntary servitude, unless for crime, could not exist in this republic. This statute created no new rights; it merely affirmed and elucidated rights as old as creation, and which, in a general way, had been recognized at the very first foundation of our government--even as far back as the old Articles of Association, before the Declaration of Independence. This amendment was the sixteenth step in _securing_ the rights of the people, but it was not enough. Our country differs from every other country, in that we have _two kinds_ of citizenship. First, we have national citizenship, based upon equal political rights. A person born a citizen of the United States, is, by the very circumstances of birth, endowed with certain political rights. In this respect, the circumstances of birth are very different from those of a person born in Great Britain. A person born in Great Britain is not endowed with political rights, simply because born in that country. Political rights in Great Britain are not based upon personal rights; they are based upon property rights. In England, persons are not represented; only property is represented. That is the very great political difference between England and the United States. In the United States, representation is based upon individual, personal rights--therefore, every person born in the United States--_every person_,--not every white person, nor every male person, but every person is born with _political_ rights. The naturalization of foreigners also secures to them the exercise of political rights, because it secures to them citizenship, and they obtain naturalization through _national_ law. The war brought about a distinct and new recognition of the rights of national citizenship. States had assumed to be superior to the nation in this very underlying national basis of voting rights, but when certain States boldly attempted to thwart national power, and vote themselves out of the Union,--when by this attempt they virtually said, there is no nation, a new protection was thrown around individual, personal, political rights, by a seventeenth step, known to the world by the Fourteenth Amendment, which defined, (not created) citizenship. "All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside," thus recognizing United States citizenship as the first and superior citizenship.

Miss Anthony was not only _born_ in the United States, but the United States also has jurisdiction over her, as is shown by this suit, under which she was arrested in Rochester, and held there to examination in the same little room in which fugitive slaves were once examined. From Rochester she was taken to Albany, from Albany back to Rochester, and now from Rochester to Canandaigua, where she is soon to be tried. She has thus been fully acknowledged by the United States as one of its citizens, and also as a citizen of the State in which she resides.

In order to become a citizen of a State, and enjoy the privileges and immunities of States, a citizen of the United States must reside in a State. Citizenship of the United States secures nothing over the citizenship of other countries, unless it secures the right of self-government. State laws may hereafter regulate suffrage, but the difference between regulating and prohibiting, is as great as the difference between state and national citizenship. The question of the war was the question of State rights; it was the negro, _vs._ State rights, or the power of States over the ballot. The question to-day is, woman, _vs._ United States rights, or the power of the United over the ballot. The moral battle now waging will settle the question of the power of the United States over the rights of citizens. By the civil war, the United States was proven to be stronger than the States. It was proven we were a nation in so far that States were but parts of the whole. The woman question, of which in this pending trial, Miss Anthony stands as the exponent, is to settle the question of United States power over the individual political rights of the people; it is a question of a monarchy or a republic. The United States may usurp power, as did the States, but it has no rights in a sovereign capacity, not given it by the Constitution, or in other words, BY THE PEOPLE. By the Preamble we have discovered _who_ are its people, and for _what purpose_ its Constitution was instituted. Each and every amendment--the first ten, the eleventh, twelfth, thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth, are only parts of the grand whole, and must, each and every one, be examined in the light of the Preamble.

Each added amendment makes this change in the status of the People, in that it gives new guaranties of freedom, and removes all pretense of right from any existing usurped power. People are slow to comprehend the change which has been effected by the decision as to State rights. One, claims that only the negro, or persons of African descent, were affected by it. Others claim, and among them, some prominent Republicans, that every civil right is by these amendments, thrown under national control. Recently, two or three suits have come before the United States on this apprehension. One of these, known as the Slaughter House Case, came up from New Orleans in the suit of certain persons against the State of Louisiana. A permit had been given certain parties to erect sole buildings for slaughter, and in other ways control that entire business in the city of New Orleans for a certain number of years. A suit upon it was appealed to the Supreme Court of the United States, on the ground of the change in the power of States, by, and through the last three amendments, and on the supposition that all the civil power of the States had thus been destroyed.

The Court decided it had no jurisdiction, though in its decision it proclaimed the far-reaching character of these amendments. In reference to the Thirteenth Amendment, the Court used this language:

"We do not say that no one else but the negro can share in this protection. Both the language _and spirit_ of these articles are to have their full and just weight in any question of construction. Undoubtedly while negro slavery alone was in the minds of the Congress which proposed the thirteenth article, it forbids any kind of slavery, now, or hereafter. If Mexican peonage, or the Chinese cooley labor system shall develop slavery of the Mexican or Chinese race within our territory, this amendment may be safely trusted to make it void."

This is the language used by the Supreme Court of the United States in reference to this thirteenth amendment; prohibiting any, _all_, and every kind of slavery, not only now, but in the hereafter, and this, although the decision, also acknowledges the fact that only African slavery _was intended_ to be covered by this amendment.

The Court further said, "And so if _other_ rights are assailed by the States, _which properly and necessarily fall within the protection of these articles_, that protection will apply, though the party interested may not be of African descent."

What "other rights fall within the protection of these articles?" What "other rights" do these amendments cover? The fourteenth article, after declaring who are citizens of the United States, and of States, still further says, "No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States, nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty or property, without due process of law, nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction, the equal protection of the laws." This comprises the first section of that amendment. The jurisdiction and protection of the general government applies to United States citizens. By its prosecution of Miss Anthony, the general government acknowledges her as a citizen of the United States, and what is much more, it acknowledges its own jurisdiction over the ballot--over the chief--chief, did I say,--over the _only_ political right of its citizens. This prosecution is an admission of United States jurisdiction, instead of State jurisdiction. This whole amendment, with the exception of the first clause of the first section, which simply declares who are citizens of the United States and States, is directed against the interference of _States_ in the rights of citizens. But in Miss Anthony's case, the State of New York has not interfered with her right to vote. She voted under local laws, and the State said not a word,--has taken no action in the case, consequently the United States has had no occasion to interfere on that ground. The question of _State_ rights was not as great a question as this: What are United States rights? Can the United States, in its sovereign capacity, overthrow the rights of its own citizens? No, it cannot; for the Fifteenth Amendment to the Constitution specifically declares "The right of citizens of the United States _to vote_, shall not be denied or abridged by the United States, or by any State, on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude."

This fifteenth Amendment has been seriously misapprehended by many people, who have understood it to mean that _women_ could be excluded from voting, simply because they are women. I have shown you that Statutes and Constitutions are always general in their character; that from generals we must argue down to particulars, and that if there is any doubt as to the interpretation of a statute, it must be defined in the interests of liberty. But as to the interpretation of this statute there can be no doubt. Had it read, "The right of citizens of the United States to take out passports, shall not be denied or abridged by the United States, on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude," no person would interpret it to mean that such right to take out passport could be denied on account of _female_ sex, or on account of _male_ sex. We will read it now, first in the light of the Declaration; second, in that of the Preamble to the Constitution, and the Constitution itself, and its various amendments, to which I have referred: the first, sixth, ninth and tenth, which would have been interpreted male, had the Constitution meant men alone, but which have always been defined to cover, and include woman--to cover and include the rights of the _whole_ people to freedom of conscience, to freedom of speech, to the right of a speedy and public trial, &c., &c., and this, although in the Sixth Amendment, the terms _him_ and _his_ are alone used. The Courts long ago decided that Statutes were of general bearing, as is fully true of the Declaration and Constitution, which are supreme statutes. The Fifteenth Amendment does not specifically exclude right of male citizens to vote, because they are _male_ citizens, therefore, male citizens are of necessity included in the right of voting. It does not specifically exclude female citizens from the right of voting, because they are female citizens, therefore, female citizens are of necessity included in the right of voting--a right which the United States cannot abridge. No male citizen can claim that he, as a male citizen, is included, save by implication, and save on the general grounds that he is not specifically excluded, he is necessarily included. Can the United States, at pleasure, take from its own citizens the right of voting, or abridge that right? Has it the right to take from citizens of States the right of voting? Are citizens of States simply protected against States, and can the United States now, at will, step in and deny or abridge the right of voting to all its male citizens simply because they are male? If it has that power over its female citizens, it has the same power over its male citizens. You cannot fail to see that the question brought up by Miss Anthony's prosecution and trial _by the United States_ for the act of voting, has developed the most important question of United States rights; a larger, most pregnant, more momentous question by far, than that of _State_ rights. The liberties of the people are much more closely involved when the United States is the aggressor, than when the States are aggressors.

"The Act to Enforce the right of citizens to vote," declares that CITIZENS shall be entitled and allowed to vote at all elections by the people, in any state, territory, district, county, city, parish, township, school district, municipality, or other territorial division, &c.

This Act was passed _after_ the ratification of the Fifteenth Amendment, and is designed to be in accordance with the Constitution. It does not say _black_ citizens shall be entitled and allowed to vote; it does not say _male_ citizens shall be entitled and allowed to vote--it merely says CITIZENS. It covers the right of women citizens to vote, and yet United States officials claim to find in this very act, their authority for prosecuting Miss Anthony and those fourteen other women citizens of Rochester for the alleged _crime_ of voting. When Miss Anthony voted, what did she do? She merely exercised her citizen's right of suffrage--a right to which she, and all women citizens are entitled by virtue of their citizenship in the nation--a right to which they are entitled because individual political rights are the basis of the government. The United States has no other foundation. If that right is trampled upon, we have no nation. We may hang together in a sort of anarchical way for a time, but our dissolution draws near. Can the United States destroy rights on account of sex? In the original Constitution, before even the first ten amendments were added, States were forbidden to pass bills of attainder. By the fourteenth amendment, the right of voting was forbidden to be abridged, _unless for crime_. Is it a crime to be a woman? "In the beginning God created man, male and female, created he them." A bill of attainder inflicts punishment, creates liabilities or _disabilities_, on account of parentage, _birth_, or descent. Do United States officials presume to create a disability, or inflict a punishment, on account of _birth_ as a woman, and this in direct defiance of the Constitution? When the Constitution of the United States presents no barrier, no lesser power has such authority. "The Constitution of the United States, _and the laws made in pursuance thereof_, shall be the supreme law of the land."

Says article sixth: "Any law of Congress not made in pursuance of, or in unison with the Constitution, is an illegal and void law." Coke declared an Act of Parliament against Magna Charta was null and void.

But United States officials declare it a crime for a United States citizen to vote. If it is a crime for a native-born citizen, it ought to be a still greater crime for a foreign-born citizen. But the fact that citizenship carries with it the right of voting, is shown in the act of naturalization. A foreigner, after a certain length of residence in this country, proceeds to take out papers of citizenship. To become a citizen, is all that he needs to make of him a voter. At one and the same time he picks up a ballot, and his naturalization papers. Nothing more than his becoming a citizen is needed for him to vote--nothing less will answer. Susan B. Anthony is a native-born citizen. She had to take out no papers to make her a citizen--she was born in the United States--she is educated, intelligent, and FREE BORN. Native-born citizenship is generally conceded to be of more value than that which is bought. Do you not remember that when Paul was brought up, preparatory to being scourged, he demanded by what right they scourged him, a Roman citizen. The chief captain said, "I bought this freedom with a great price." Paul replied, "I am free born"; then great fear fell upon the chief captain, and he ordered the bonds removed from Paul. Native-born Roman citizenship was worth as much as that two thousand years ago. To-day, the foreign-born American citizen, who has bought his freedom with a great price, who has left his home and country, and crossed the sea to a strange land, in order that he may find freedom, is held to be superior to "free born" American women citizens.

But Miss Anthony is not battling for herself alone, nor for the woman alone; she stands to-day, the embodiment of Republican principles. The question of to-day, is not has woman a right to vote, but has _any_ American citizen, white or black, native-born, or naturalized, a right to vote. The prosecution of Miss Anthony by the United States, for the alleged crime of having cast a vote at the last election, is a positive declaration of the government of the United States that it is a crime to vote. Let that decision be affirmed, and we have no republic; the ballot, the governing power in the hands of every person, is the only true republic. Each person to help make the laws which govern him or her, is the only true democracy. Individual responsibility, personal representation, exact political equality, are the only stable foundations of a republic, and when the United States makes voting a crime on the part of any free-born, law-abiding citizen, it strikes a blow at its own stability; it is undermining the very foundations of the republic--it is attempting to overthrow its own Constitution.

Miss Anthony is to-day the representative of liberty; she is to-day battling for the rights of every man, woman and child in the country; she is not only upholding the right of every native-born citizen, but of every naturalized citizen; to-day is at stake in her person, the new-born hopes of foreign lands, the quickened instincts of liberty, so well nigh universal. All these are on trial with her; the destinies of America, the civilization of the world, are in the balance with her as she stands on her defence. If the women of this country are restricted in their right of self-government, what better is it for them to have been born in the United States, than to have been born in Russia, or France, or England, or many another monarchical country? No better; nor as well, as in all these countries, women vote upon certain questions. In Russia, about one-half of the property of the country is in the hands of women, and they vote upon its disposition and control. In France and Sweden, women vote at municipal elections, and in England, every woman householder or rate-payer, votes for city officers, for poor wardens and school commissioners, thus expressing her views as to the education of her children, which is a power not possessed by a single woman of this State of New York, whose boast has been that it leads the legislation of the world in regard to women. Property-holding women in England, vote equally with property-holding men, for every office except Parliamentary, and even that is near at hand, a petition for it of 180,000 names going up last year. England, though a monarchy, is consistent with herself. As the foundation of English representation is property, not persons, property is allowed its representation, whether it is held by man or by woman.

"Are ye not of more value than many sparrows?" said one of old. Is it less pertinent for us to ask if personal representation is not more sacred than property representation? "Where governments lead, there are no revolutions," said the eloquent Castelar. But revolution is imminent in a government like ours, instituted by the people, for the people, in its charters recognizing the most sacred rights of the people, but which, in a sovereign capacity, through its officials, tramples upon the most sacredly secured and guaranteed rights of the people.

The question brought up by this trial is not a woman's rights question, but a citizen's rights question. It is not denied that women are citizens,--it is not denied that Susan B. Anthony was born in the United States, and is therefore a citizen of the United States, and of the State wherein she resides, which is this State of New York. It cannot be denied that she is a person,--one of the people,--there is not a word in the Constitution of the United States which militates against the recognition of woman as a person, as one of the people, as a citizen. The whole question, then, to-day, turns on the power of the United States over the political rights of citizens--the whole question then, to-day, turns on the supreme authority of the National Constitution.

The Constitution recognizes native-born women as citizens, both of the United States, and of the States in which they reside, and the Enforcement Act of 1870, in unison with our national fundamental principles, is entitled "An Act _to enforce the right of citizens of the United States to vote_ in the several States of the Union." Out of those three words, "for other purposes," or any provisions of this act included in them, cannot be found authority for restraining any citizen not "guilty of participating in the rebellion, or other crime," from voting, and we brand this prosecution of Miss Anthony by United States officials, under claim of provisions in this act, as _an illegal prosecution_--_an infamous prosecution_, in direct defiance of national law--dangerous in its principles, tending to subvert a republican form of government, and a direct step, whether so designed or not, to the establishment of a monarchy in this country. Where the right of one individual is attacked, the rights of all are menaced. A blow against one citizen, is a blow against every citizen.

The government has shown itself very weak in prosecuting Miss Anthony. No astute lawyer could be found on a side so pregnant of flaws as this one, were not the plaintiff in the case, the sovereign United States. The very fact of the prosecution is at one and the same time weakness on the part of the government, and an act of unauthorized authority. It is weakness, because by it, the United States comes onto the ground of the defendant, and, at once admits voting is an United States right, because United States rights _are citizens' rights_. By this prosecution, the United States clearly admits that protection of the ballot is an United States duty, instead of a State duty. It is an United States duty instead of a State duty, because voting is an United States right instead of a State right. This prosecution is an open admission by the United States, that voting is a _Constitutional right_.

But the prosecution is also an admission of unauthorized authority in that by it, the United States _discriminates between citizens_. If there is one point of our government more strongly fortified than another, it is that the government is of the people. The Preamble of the Constitution, heretofore quoted, _means all the people_, if language has a meaning. _All_ the people are citizens, if the fourteenth amendment has any signification at all.