Читать книгу History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III - Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton - Страница 19

Prolonged Discussions in the Senate on a Special Committee to Look After the Rights of Women, Messrs. Bayard, Morgan and Vest in Opposition—Mr. Hoar Champions the Measure in the Senate, Mr. Reed in the House—Washington Convention—Representative Orth and Senator Saunders on the Woman Suffrage Platform—Hearings Before Select Committees of Senate and House—Reception Given by Mrs. Spofford at the Riggs House—Philadelphia Convention—Mrs. Hannah Whitehall Smith's Dinner—Congratulations from the Central Committee of Great Britain—Majority and Minority Reports in the Senate—Nebraska Campaign—Conventions in Omaha—Joint Resolution Introduced by Hon. John D. White of Kentucky, Referred to the Select Committee—Washington Convention, January 24, 25, 26, 1883—Majority Report in the House.

Although the effort to secure a standing committee on the political rights of women was defeated in the forty-sixth congress, by New York's Stalwart Senator, Roscoe Conkling, motions were made early in the first session of the forty-seventh congress, by Hon. George F. Hoar in the Senate, and Hon. John D. White in the House, for a special committee to look after the interests of women.[81] It passed by a vote of 115 to 84 in the House, and by 35 to 23 in the Senate. On December 13, 1881, the Senate Committee on Rules reported the following resolution for the appointment of a special committee on woman suffrage:

Resolved, That a select committee of seven senators be appointed by the Chair, to whom shall be referred all petitions, bills and resolves providing for the extension of suffrage to women or the removal of their legal disabilities.

December 14.

Mr. Hoar: I move to take up the resolution reported by the Committee on Rules yesterday, for the appointment of a select committee on the subject of woman suffrage.

Mr. Vest: Mr. President, I am constrained to object to the passage of this resolution, and I do it with considerable reluctance. At present we have thirty standing committees of the Senate; four joint and seven special committees, in addition to the one now proposed.

The President pro tempore: The Chair will inform the senator from Missouri that a majority of the Senate has to decide whether the resolution shall be considered.

Mr. Vest: I understood the Chair to state that it was before the Senate.

The President pro tempore: It is before the Senate if there be no objection. The Chair thought the senator made objection to its consideration.

Mr. Hoar: It went over under the rule yesterday and comes up now.

Mr. Edmunds: It is the regular order now.

The President pro tempore: Certainly. The Chair thought the senator from Missouri objected to its consideration.

Mr. Vest: No, sir.

The President pro tempore: The resolution is before the Senate and open to debate.

Mr. Vest: I have had the honor for a few years to be a member of the Committee on Public Buildings and Grounds, and my colleagues on that committee will bear witness with me to the trouble and annoyance which at every session have arisen in regard to giving accommodations to the special committees. Two sessions ago there was a conflict between the Senate and House in regard to furnishing committee-rooms for three special committees, and it is only upon the doctrine of pedis possessio that the Senate to-day holds three committee-rooms in the capitol, the House still laying claim as a matter of law, through their Committee on Public Buildings and Grounds, for the possession of these rooms. At the special session, on account of the exigencies in regard to rooms, we were compelled to take the retiring-room assigned near the gallery to the ladies, and cut it into two rooms, to accommodate select committees.

At this session we have created two special committees more, and I should like to make the inquiry when and where this manufacture of special committees is to cease? As soon as any subject becomes one of comment in the newspapers, or, respectfully I say it, a hobby with certain zealous partisans throughout the country, application is made to the Senate of the United States and a special committee is to be appointed. For this reason, and for the simple reason that a stop must be had somewhere to the raising of special committees, I oppose the proposition now before the Senate.

But, Mr. President, I will be entirely ingenuous and give another reason. This is simply a step toward the recognition of woman suffrage, and I am opposed to it upon principle in its inception. In my judgment it has nothing but mischief in it to the institutions and to the society of this whole country. I do not propose to enter into a discussion of that subject to-day, but it will be proper for me to make this statement, and I make it intending no reflection upon the zealous ladies who have engaged for the past ten years in manufacturing a public sentiment upon this question. I received to-day a letter from a distinguished lady in my own State, for whom I have personally the greatest admiration and respect, calling my attention to the fact that I propose to deny justice to the women of the country. Mr. President, I deny it. It is because I believe that the conservative influence of society in the United States rests with the women of the country that I propose not to degrade the wife and mother to the ward politician, the justice of the peace, or the notary public. It is because I believe honestly that all the best influences for the conservation of society rest upon the women of the country in their proper sphere that I shall oppose this and every other step now and henceforth as violating, as I believe, one of the great essential fundamental laws of nature and of society.

Mr. President, the revenges of nature are sure and unerring, and these revenges are just as certain in political matters and in social matters as in the physical world. Now and here I desire to record once for all my conviction that in this movement to take the women of the country out of their proper sphere of social influence, that great and glorious sphere in which nature and nature's God have placed them, and rush them into the political arena, the attempt is made to put them where they were never intended to be; and I now and here record my opposition to it. This may seem to be but a small matter, but as this letter shows, and I reveal no private confidence, it recognizes the first great step in this reform, as its advocates are pleased to term it. My practice and conviction as a public man is to fight every wrong wherever I believe it to exist. I am opposed to this movement. I am opposed to it upon principle, upon conviction, and I shall call for the yeas and nays in order to record my vote against it.

December 15.

The Senate resumed the consideration of the resolution reported from the Committee on Rules by Mr. Hoar on the 13th inst.

Mr. Vest: Mr. President, I disclaim any intention again to incite or excite any general discussion in regard to woman suffrage. The senator from Massachusetts [Mr. Hoar], for whom I have very great regard, was yesterday pleased to observe that the State governments furnished by the senator from Missouri and other senators in the past had been no argument in favor of manhood suffrage. Mr. President, I have been under the impression that the American people to-day are the best governed, the best clothed, the best fed, the best housed, the happiest people upon the face of the globe, and that, too, notwithstanding the fact that they have been under the domination of the Republican party for twenty long years. I have also been under the impression that the institutions of the States and of the United States are an improvement upon all governmental theories and schemes hitherto known to mortal man; but we are to learn to-day from the senator from Massachusetts that this government and the State governments have been failures, and that woman suffrage must be introduced in order to purify the political atmosphere and elevate the suffrage.

Mr. Hoar: Will the senator allow me to interrupt him for a moment?

Mr. Vest: Of course.

Mr. Hoar: I desire to disclaim the meaning which the honorable senator seems to have put upon my words. I agree with him that the American governments have been the best on the face of the earth, but it is because of their adoption of that principle of equality more than any other government, the logical effect of which will compel them to yield the right prayed for to women, that they are the best. But still best as they are, I said, and mean to say, that the business of governing mankind has been the one business on the face of the earth which has been done most clumsily, which has been, even where most excellent, full of mistakes, expense, injustice, and wrong-doing. What I said was that I did not think the persons to whom that privileged function had been committed so far were entitled to claim any special superiority for the masculine intellect in the results which it had achieved.

Mr. Vest: To say that the governments, State and national, now in existence upon this continent are imperfect is but to announce the truism that everything made by man is necessarily imperfect. But I stand here to declare to-day that the governments of the States, and the national government, in theory, although failing sometimes in practice, are a standing monument to the genius and intellect of the men who created them. But the senator from Massachusetts was pleased to say further, that woman suffrage should obtain in this country in the interest of education. I permit not that senator to go further than myself in the line of universal public education. I have declared, over and over again, in every county in my State for the past ten years, that universal education should accompany universal suffrage, that the school-house should crown every mound in prairie and forest, that it was the temple of liberty and the altar of law and order.

I well remember that I was thrilled with the eloquence of the distinguished senator from Massachusetts at the last session of the last congress, when, upon a bill to provide for general education by a donation of the public lands, he so pathetically and justly described the mass of dark ignorance and illiteracy projected upon the people of the South under the policy of the Republican party, and the senator then stood here and said that the people of Massachusetts extended the public lands to relieve the people of the South from this monstrous burden. What does the senator propose to do to-day? He proposes with one stroke of the pen to double, and more than double, the illiterate suffrage of the United States. The senator says that one-half the people of the United States are represented in this measure of woman suffrage. I deny it, sir. If the senator means that the women of America, comprising one-half of the population, are interested in this measure, I deny it most emphatically and most peremptorily. Not one-tenth of them want it. Not one-tenth of the mothers and sisters and Christian women of this land want to be turned into politicians or to meddle in a sphere to which God and nature have not assigned them.

Sir, there are some ladies—and I do not intend to term them anything but ladies—who are zealously engaged in this cause, and they have flooded this hall with petitions, and have called their women's rights conventions all over the land. I assail not their motives, but I deny that they represent the women of the United States. I say that if woman suffrage obtains, the worst class of the women of the country will rush to the polls and the best class will remain away by a large majority. That is my deliberate judgment and firm conviction. But, Mr. President, a word in regard to the committees. I desire no general discussion upon woman suffrage, and simply alluded in passing to what had been said by the senator from Massachusetts.

The President pro tempore: The hour of one o'clock has arrived, and the morning hour is closed.

December 16.

Mr. Jones of Florida: I desire to call up a resolution now lying on the table, which I introduced on the 14th instant, calling for information from the Secretary of War touching a ship-canal across the peninsula of Florida.

Mr. Hoar: Mr. President—

The President pro tempore: The senator from Florida asks leave to call up a resolution submitted by him.

Mr. Hoar: My resolution was before the Senate yesterday, and comes up in order. I hope we shall vote on it.

Mr. Jones of Florida: I will only say that my resolution was laid over temporarily on the objection of the senator from Vermont [Mr. Edmunds], which he will not insist upon.

Mr. Hoar: Allow me to call the attention of the Chair to the fact; it is not the question of a resolution which has not been taken up. The resolution reported by me from the Committee on Rules was taken up, and was under discussion when the senator from Missouri [Mr. Vest] was taken from the floor by the expiration of the morning hour, in the midst of his remarks. Certainly his right to conclude his remarks takes precedence of other business under the usual practice of the Senate.

The President pro tempore: The Chair thought the senator from Missouri had ended his remarks, or he would not have interposed when he did.

Mr. Hoar: No, sir.

Mr. Jones of Florida: My resolution involves no debate. It is merely a resolution of inquiry.

Mr. Hoar: The other will be disposed of, I hope, in a few moments.

Mr. Jones of Florida: The resolution to which I refer went over informally on the objection of the senator from Vermont, and I think he has no objection now.

Mr. Hoar: The other will be disposed of in a moment, and I hope we shall vote on it.

The President pro tempore: The Chair lays before the Senate the resolution of the senator from Massachusetts [Mr. Hoar].

The Senate resumed the consideration of the resolution reported from the Committee on Rules by Mr. Hoar on the 13th instant.

The President pro tempore: The Chair would state to the senator from Missouri [Mr. Vest] that the Chair supposed yesterday that he had finished his remarks, or the Chair would not have stopped him at that moment. The question is on agreeing to the resolution, on which the senator from Missouri [Mr. Vest] is entitled to the floor.

Mr. Vest: Mr. President, I was on the eve of finishing my remarks yesterday when the morning hour expired, and I do not now wish to detain the Senate. I was about to say at that time that the Senate now has forty-one committees, with a small army of messengers and clerks, one-half of whom, without exaggeration, are literally without employment. I shall not pretend to specify the committees of this body which have not one single bill, resolution, or proposition of any sort pending before them, and have not had for months. I am very well aware that if I should name one of them, Liberty would lie bleeding in the streets at once, and that committee would become the most important on the list of committees of the Senate. I shall not venture to do that. I am informed by the Sergeant-at-arms that if this resolution is adopted he must have six additional messengers to be added to that body of ornamental employés who now stand or sit at the doors of the respective committee-rooms. I have heard that this committee is for the purpose of giving a committee to a senator in this body. I have heard the statement made, but I cannot believe it, and I am very certain that no senator will undertake to champion the resolution upon any such ground.

The senator from Massachusetts was pleased to say that the Committee on the Judiciary had so many important questions pending before it, that the subject of woman suffrage should not be added to them. The Committee on Territories is open to any complaint or suggestion by the ladies who advocate woman suffrage, in regard to this subject in the territories; and the Committee on Privileges and Elections to which this subject should go most appropriately, as affecting the suffrage, has not now before it, as I am informed, one single bill, resolution, or proposition of any sort whatever. That committee is also open to inquiry upon this subject.

But, Mr. President, out of all committees without business, and habitually without business, in this body, there is one that beyond any question could take jurisdiction of this matter and do it ample justice. I refer to that most respectable and antique institution, the Committee on Revolutionary Claims. For thirty years it has been without business. For thirty long years the placid surface of that parliamentary sea has been without one single ripple. If the senator from Massachusetts desires a tribunal for calm judicial equilibrium and examination, a tribunal far from the "madding crowd's ignoble strife," a tribunal eminently respectable, dignified and unique, why not send this question to the Committee on Revolutionary Claims? When I name the personnel of that committee it will be evident that any consideration on any subject touching the female sex would receive not only deliberate but immediate attention, for the second member upon that committee is my distinguished friend from Florida [Mr. Jones], and who can doubt that he would give his undivided attention to the subject? [Laughter.] It is eminently proper that this subject should go to that committee because if there is any revolutionary claim in this country it is that of woman suffrage. [Laughter.] It revolutionizes society; it revolutionizes religion; it revolutionizes the constitution and laws; and it revolutionizes the opinions of those so old-fashioned among us as to believe that the legitimate and proper sphere of woman is the family circle as wife and mother and not as politician and voter—those of us who are proud to believe that—

A woman's noblest station is retreat;

Her fairest virtues fly from public sight;

Domestic worth—that shuns too strong a light.

Before that Committee on Revolutionary Claims why could not this most revolutionary of all claims receive immediate and ample attention? More than that, as I said before, if there is any tribunal that could give undivided time and dignified attention, is it not this committee? If there is one peaceful haven of rest, never disturbed by any profane bill or resolution of any sort, it is the Committee on Revolutionary Claims. It is, in parliamentary life, described by that ecstatic verse in Watts' hymn:

There shall I bathe my wearied soul

In seas of endless rest,

And not one wave of trouble roll

Across my peaceful breast.

For thirty years there has been no excitement in that committee, and it needs to-day, in Western phrase, some "stirring-up." By all natural laws stagnation breeds disease and death; and what could stir up this most venerable and respectable institution more than an application of the strong-minded, with short hair and shorter skirts, invading its dignified realm and elucidating all the excellences of female suffrage? Moreover, if these ladies could ever succeed, in the providence of God, in obtaining a report from that committee, it would end this question forever; for the public at large and myself included, in view of that miracle of female blandishment and female influence, would surrender at once, and female suffrage would become constitutional and lawful. Sir, I insist upon it that in deference to this committee, in deference to the fact that it needs this sort of regimen and medicine, this whole subject should be so referred. [Laughter.]

Mr. Morrill: Mr. President, I do not desire to say anything as to the merits of the resolution, but I understand the sole purpose of raising this committee is to have a committee-room. So far as I know, there are some five or six committees now which are destitute of rooms, and it would be impossible for the Committee on Public Buildings and Grounds to assign any room to this committee—the object which I understand is at the foundation of the introduction of the proposition; that is to say, to give these ladies an opportunity to be heard in some appropriate committee-room on the questions which they wish to agitate and submit.

Mr. Hoar: They would find room in some other committee-room. They could have the room of the Committee on Privileges and Elections, if there were no other place.

The President pro tempore: The question is on the adoption of the resolution reported by the senator from Massachusetts.

Mr. Harris: Did not the senator from Missouri [Mr. Vest] offer an amendment?

Mr. Garland: As I understand, he moved to refer the subject to the Committee on Revolutionary Claims.

The President pro tempore: Does the Chair understand that the senator from Missouri has offered an amendment?

Mr. Vest: Yes, sir; I move to refer the matter to the Committee on Revolutionary Claims.

Mr. Conger: Let the resolution be reported.

The acting secretary read the resolution.

The President pro tempore: The senator from Missouri offers an amendment, that the subject be referred to the standing Committee on Revolutionary Claims. The question is on the amendment of the senator from Missouri. [Putting the question.] The noes appear to have it.

Mr. Farley called for the yeas and nays, and they were ordered and taken.

Mr. Blair [after having voted in the negative]: I have voted inadvertently. I am paired with the senator from Alabama [Mr. Pugh]. Were he present he would have voted "yea," as I have voted "nay." I withdraw my vote.

Mr. Windom: I am paired with the senator from West Virginia [Mr. Davis], but as I understand he would vote "nay" on this question, I vote "nay."

Mr. Ingalls: I am paired with the senator from Mississippi [Mr. Lamar].

The result was announced—yeas 22, nays 31. So the motion was not agreed to.

The President pro tempore: The question recurs on the adoption of the resolution.

Mr. Bayard: Is it in order for me to move the reference of the subject to the Committee on the Judiciary?

The President pro tempore: It is in order to move to refer the resolution to the Committee on the Judiciary, the Chair understands.

Mr. Bayard: Then I make a motion that the resolution be sent to the Committee on the Judiciary. I would state that I voted with some regret and hesitancy upon the motion of the senator from Missouri [Mr. Vest] to refer this matter to the Committee on Revolutionary Claims. My regret was owing to the fact that I do not wish even to seem to treat a subject of this character in a spirit of levity, or to indicate the slightest disrespect by such a reference, to those whose opinions upon this subject differ essentially from my own. I cast the vote because I considered it would be taking the subject virtually away from the consideration of congress at its present session. I do, however, hold that there is no necessity for the creation of a special committee to attend to this subject. The Committee on the Judiciary has within the last few years, upon many occasions, attempted to deal with it. Since you, sir, and I have been members of that committee—

Mr. Hoar: Mr. President—

The President pro tempore: Will the senator from Delaware yield to the senator from Massachusetts?

Mr. Bayard: I will, if he thinks it necessary to interrupt me.

Mr. Hoar: I desire to ask the senator, if he is willing, having been lately a member of the committee to which he refers, whether it is not the rule of that committee to allow no hearings to individual petitioners, a rule which is departed from only in very rare and peculiar cases?

Mr. Bayard: I will reply to the honorable senator that the occasion which arose to my mind and caused me to remember the action of that committee was the audience given by it to a very large delegation of woman suffragists, to wit, the representatives of a convention held in this city, who to the number, I think, of twenty-five, came into the committee-room of the Committee on the Judiciary, and were heard, as I remember, for more than one day, or certainly had more than one hearing, before that committee, of which you, sir, and I were members.

Mr. Hoar: If the senator will pardon me, however, he has not answered my question. I asked the senator not whether on one particular occasion they gave a hearing on this subject, but whether it is not the rule of that committee, occasioned by the necessity of its business, from which it departs only in very rare cases, not to give hearings?

Mr. Bayard: I cannot answer whether a rule so defined as that suggested by the honorable senator from Massachusetts exists in that committee. It is my impression, however, that cases are frequently, by order of that committee, argued before it. We have had very elaborate and able arguments upon subjects connected with the Pacific railroads, I remember; and we have had arguments upon various subjects. It is constantly our pleasure to hear members of the Senate upon a variety of questions before that committee. It may be only a proof that women's rights are not unrecognized nor their influence unfelt when I state the fact that if there be such a rule as is suggested by the honorable senator from Massachusetts of excluding persons from the audience of that committee, on the occasion of the application of the ladies a hearing was granted, and they came in force,—not only force in numbers, but force in the character and intelligence of those who appeared before the committee. They were listened to with great respect, but their views were not concurred in by the committee as it was then composed. We were all entertained by the bright wit, the clever and, in my judgment, in many respects, the just sarcasm of our honorable friend from Missouri [Mr. Vest], but my habit is not to consider public measures in a jocular light; it is not to consider a question of this kind in a jocular light. Whatever may be the merits or demerits of this proposition, whatever may be the reasons for or against it, no man can doubt that it will strike at the very roots of the present organization of society, and that its consequences will be most profound and far-reaching should the advocates of the measure proposed prevail.

Therefore it is that I think this subject should not be considered separately; it should not have a special committee—either of advocates or opponents arranged for its consideration; but it should go where proposed amendments to the fundamental law of the land have always been sent for consideration,—to that committee to which judicial questions, questions of a constitutional nature, have always in the history of this government been committed. There is no need, there is no justice, there is no wisdom in attempting to separate the fate of this question, which affects society so profoundly and generally, from the other questions that affect society. It cannot be made a specialty: it ought not to be. You cannot tear this question from the great contest of human passions, affections, and interests which surround it, and treat it as a thing by itself. It has many sides from which it may be viewed, some that are not proper or fitting for this forum, and a discussion now in public. There are the claims of religion itself to be considered in connection with this case. Civil rights, social rights, political rights, religious rights, all are bound up in the consideration of a measure like this. In its consideration you cannot safely attempt to segregate this question and leave it untouched and uninfluenced by all those other questions by which it is surrounded and in the consideration of which it is bound to be connected and concerned. Therefore, without going further, prematurely, into a discussion of the merits of the proposition itself or its desirability, I say that it should take the usual course which the practice and laws of this body have given to grave public questions. Let it go to the Committee on the Judiciary, and let them, under their sense of duty, deal with it according to its gravity and importance, and if it be here returned let it be passed upon by the grave deliberations of the Senate itself. I hope the special committee proposed will not be raised, and I trust the Senate will concur with me in thinking that the subject should be sent to the Committee on the Judiciary.

Mr. Logan rose.

The President pro tempore: The morning hour has expired.

Mr. Logan: I want to say just one word.

The President pro tempore: It requires unanimous consent.

Mr. Logan: I do not wish to make a speech; I merely desire to say a word in response to what the senator from Delaware [Mr. Bayard] has said in relation to the reference to the Judiciary Committee.

Mr. Harris: I ask unanimous consent that the senator from Illinois may proceed.

The President pro tempore: There being no objection unanimous consent will be presumed to have been given for the senator from Illinois to make his explanation.

Mr. Logan: This question having been once before the Judiciary Committee, and it being a request by many ladies, who are citizens of the United States just as we are, that they should have a special committee of the Senate before which they can be heard, I deem it proper and right, without any committal whatever in reference to my own views, that they should have that committee. It is nothing but fair, just, and right that they should have a committee organized as nearly as can be in the Senate in favor of the views they desire to present. It is treating them only as other citizens would desire to be treated before a body of this character. I am, therefore, opposed to the reference of the proposition to the Judiciary Committee, and I hope the Senate will give these ladies a special committee where they can be heard, and that that committee may be so organized as that it will be as favorable to their views as possible, so that they may have a fair hearing. That is all I desire to say.

Mr. Morrill: I hope this subject will be concluded this morning, otherwise it is to come up constantly and monopolize all the time of the morning hour. I do not think it will require many minutes more to dispose of it now.

The President pro tempore: The Chair will entertain a motion on that subject.

Mr. Morrill: I move to set aside other business until this resolution shall be disposed of. If it should continue any length of time of course I would withdraw the suggestion.

The President pro tempore: The senator from Vermont—

Mr. Voorhees: Mr. President, I feel constrained to call for the regular order.

December 19, 1881.

The President pro tempore: Are there further "concurrent or other resolutions"?

Mr. Hoar: I call up the resolution in regard to woman suffrage, reported by me from the Committee on Rules.

Mr. Jones of Florida: I ask for information how long the morning hour is to extend?

The President pro tempore: The regular business of the morning hour is closed. The morning hour, however, will not expire until twenty minutes past one. The senator from Massachusetts asks to have taken up the resolution reported by him from the Committee on Rules.

Mr. Hoar: I hope we may have a vote on the resolution this morning.

The President pro tempore: The question is on the amendment proposed by the senator from Delaware [Mr. Bayard], that the subject be referred to the Committee on the Judiciary.

Mr. Hoar: It is not intended by the resolution to commit the Senate, or any senator in the slightest degree to any opinion upon the question of woman suffrage, but it is merely the question of a convenient mode of hearing. I hope we shall be allowed to have a vote on the resolution.

The President pro tempore: Is the Senate ready for the question on the motion of the senator from Delaware?

Mr. Bayard and Mr. Farley called for the yeas and nays, and they were ordered.

Mr. Beck: Mr. President, I have received a number of communications from very respectable ladies in my own State upon this important question; but I am unable to comply with their request and support the female suffrage which they advocate. I shall vote for the reference to the Committee on the Judiciary in order that there may be a thorough investigation of the question. I wholly disagree with the suggestion of the senator from Illinois [Mr. Logan], that a committee ought to be appointed as favorable to the views of these ladies as possible. I desire a committee that will have no views, for or against them, except what is best for the public good. Such a committee I understand the Committee on the Judiciary to be.

I desire to say only in a word that the difficulty I have and the question I desire the Committee on the Judiciary to report upon is, the effect of this question upon suffrage. By the fifteenth amendment to the Constitution of the United States there can be no discrimination made in regard to voting on account of race, color or previous condition. Intelligence is properly regarded as one of the fundamental principles of fair suffrage. We have been compelled in the last ten years to allow all the colored men of the South to become voters. There is a mass of ignorance there to be absorbed that will take years and years of care in order to bring that class up to the standard of intelligent voters. The several States are addressing themselves to that task as earnestly as possible. Now it is proposed that all the women of the country shall vote; that all the colored women of the South, who are as much more ignorant than the colored men as it is possible to imagine, shall vote. Not one perhaps in a hundred of them can read or write. The colored men have had the advantages of communication with other men in a variety of forms. Many of them have considerable intelligence; but the colored women have not had equal chances. Take them from their wash-tubs and their household work and they are absolutely ignorant of the new duties of voting citizens. The intelligent ladies of the North and the West and the South cannot vote without extending that privilege to that class of ignorant colored people. I doubt whether any man will say that it is safe for the republic now, when we are going through the problem we are obliged to solve, to fling in this additional mass of ignorance upon the suffrage of the country. Why, sir, a rich corporation or a body of men of wealth could buy them up for fifty cents apiece, and they would vote without knowing what they were doing for the side that paid most. Yet we are asked to confer suffrage upon them, and to have a committee appointed as favorable to that view as possible, so as to get a favorable report upon it!

I want the Committee on the Judiciary to tell the congress and the country whether they think it is good policy now to confer suffrage on all the colored women of the South, ignorant as they are known to be, and thus add to the ignorance that we are now struggling with, and whether the republic can be sustained upon such a basis as that. For that reason, and because I want that information from an unbiased committee, because I know that suffrage has been degraded sufficiently already, and because it would be degraded infinitely more if a report favorable to this extension of suffrage should be adopted and passed through congress, I am opposed to this movement. No matter if there are a number of respectable ladies who are competent to vote and desire it to be done, because of the very fact that they cannot be allowed this privilege without giving all the mass of ignorant colored women in the country the right to vote, thus bringing in a mass of ignorance that would crush and degrade the suffrage of this country almost beyond conception, I shall vote to refer the subject to the Judiciary Committee, and I shall await their report with a good deal of anxiety.

Mr. Morgan: Mr. President—

The President pro tempore: The morning hour has expired, and the unfinished business is before the Senate.

December 20, 1881.

Mr. Hoar: I now call up the resolution for appointing a special committee on woman suffrage.

The President pro tempore: The morning hour having expired, the senator from Massachusetts calls up the resolution which was under consideration yesterday.

Mr. Ingalls: What is the regular order?

The President pro tempore: There is no regular unfinished business. The senator from Florida [Mr. Call] gave notice yesterday that he would ask the indulgence of the Senate to-day to consider the subject of homestead rights.

Mr. Hoar: I hope this matter may be disposed of. It is very unpleasant to me to stand before the Senate in this way, taking up its time with this matter in a five minutes' debate every day in succession for an unlimited period of time. It is a matter which every senator understands. It has nothing to do with the merits of the woman suffrage question at all. It is a mere desire on the part of these people to have a particular form of hearing, which seems to me the most convenient for the Senate, and I hope the Senate will be willing to vote on the resolution and let it pass.

Mr. Morgan: I have no objection to proceeding to the consideration of the resolution, but I desire to address the Senate upon it.

Mr. Hoar: I think I must ask now as a favor of the senator from Alabama that he let the resolution be disposed of promptly.

The President pro tempore: The senator from Alabama states that he has no objection to the present consideration of the resolution, but he asks leave to make some remarks upon it. The Chair hearing no objection to the consideration of the resolution, it is before the Senate.

Mr. Farley: I object to the consideration of the resolution.

Mr. Hoar: I move to take it up.

The President pro tempore: The senator from Massachusetts calls it up as a matter of right. If a majority of the Senate agree to take up the resolution it is before the Senate, and the Chair will put the question. The question is on agreeing to the motion of the senator from Massachusetts to proceed to the consideration of the resolution. [The motion was agreed to; and the Senate resumed the consideration of the resolution reported from the Committee on Rules by Mr. Hoar on the 13th instant, which was read.]

The President pro tempore: The pending question is on the motion of the senator from Delaware [Mr. Bayard] to refer the subject to the Committee on the Judiciary, on which the yeas and nays have been ordered.

Mr. Morgan: Mr. President, I stand in a different relation to this question from that of the senator from Kentucky [Mr. Beck], who said yesterday that he had received a number of communications from very respectable ladies in his own State upon this very important subject, and yet felt constrained by a sense of duty to deny the action which they solicited at the hands of congress. I am not informed that any woman from Alabama has ever sent a petition to the Senate, or to either house, upon this matter. Indeed, it is my impression that no petitions or letters have ever been addressed by any lady in the State of Alabama to either house of congress upon this question. It may be that that peculiar type of civilization which drives women from their homes to the ballot-box to seek redress and protection against their husbands has never yet reached the State of Alabama, and I shall not be disagreeably disappointed if it should never come upon our people, for they have lived in harmony and in prosperity now for many years. Besides the relief which the State has seen proper to give to married women in respect of their separate estates, we have not thought it wise or politic in any sense to go further and undertake to make a line of demarkation between the husband and wife as politicians. On the contrary, according to our estimate of a proper civilization, we look to the family relation as being the true foundation of our republican institutions. Strike out the family relation, disband the family, destroy the proper authority of the person at the head of the family, either the wife or the husband, and you take from popular government all legitimate foundation.

The measure which is now brought before the Senate of the United States is but the initial measure of a series which has been urged upon the attention of States and territories, and upon the attention of the Congress of the United States in various forms to draw a line of political demarkation through a man's household, through his fireside, and to open to the intrusion of politics and politicians that sacred circle of the family where no man should be permitted to intrude without the consent of both the heads of the family. What picture could be more disagreeable or more disgusting than to have a pot-house politician introduce himself into a gentleman's family, with his wife seated at one side of the fireplace and himself at the other, and this man coming between to urge arguments why the wife should oppose the policy that the husband advocates, or that the husband should oppose the policy that the wife advocates?

If this measure means anything it is a proposition that the Senate of the United States shall first vote to carry into effect this unjust and improper intrusion into the home circle. Suppose this resolution to raise a select committee should be passed: that committee will have its hands full and its ears full of petitions and applications and speeches from strong-minded women, and of course it must make some report to the Senate; and we shall have this subject introduced in here as one that requires a peculiar application of the powers of the Senate for its digestion and for the completion of the bills and measures founded upon it. At the next session of congress this select committee will become a standing committee of the Senate, and then we shall have that which appears to be the most potential and at the same time the most dangerous element in politics to-day, agitation, agitation, agitation. It seems that the legislators of the United States Government are not to be allowed to pass in quiet judgment upon measures of this character, but like many other things which are addressing themselves to the attention of the people on this side of the water and the other, they must all be moved against the Senate and against the House by agitation. You raise your committee and allow the agitators to come before them, yea, more than that, you invite them to come; and what is the result? The Congress of the United States will for the next ten or perhaps twenty years be continually assailed for special and peculiar legislation in favor of the women of the land.

I do not understand that a woman in this country has any more right to a select committee than a man has. It would be just as rational and as proper in every legislative and parliamentary sense to have a select committee for the consideration of the rights of men as to have a committee for the consideration of the rights of women. I object, sir, to this disseverance between the sexes, and I object to the Senate of the United States giving its sanction in advance or in any way to this character of legislation. It is a false principle, and it will work evil, and only evil, in this country.

What jurisdiction do you expect to exercise in the Senate of the United States for the benefit of the women in respect of suffrage or in respect of separate estates? Where are the boundaries of your jurisdiction? You find them in the territories and in the District of Columbia. If you expect to proceed into the States you must have the Constitution of the United States amended so as to put our wives and our daughters upon the footing of those who are provided for in the fourteenth and fifteenth amendments. Your jurisdiction is limited to the territories and to the District of Columbia.

Inasmuch as this measure, I understand, has been made a party measure by the decree of a caucus, I propose to make some little inquiry into the past legislation of the Congress of the United States under Republican rule in respect of the extension of the right of suffrage to certain classes of people in this country. I will take up first the territories.

Let us look for a moment at the result of woman suffrage in some of the territories. The territorial legislature of Utah has gone forward and conferred the right of suffrage upon women. The population in the last decade has reached from 64,000, I believe, to about 150,000. The territorial legislature of Utah conferred upon the females of that territory the right of suffrage, and how have they exercised that right? Sir, I am ashamed to say it, but it is known to the world that the power of Mormonism and polygamy in Utah territory is sustained by female suffrage. You cannot get rid of those laws. Ninety per cent. of the legislative power of Utah territory is Mormon and polygamous. If female suffrage is to be incorporated into the laws of our country with a view to the amelioration of our morals or our political sentiments, we stand aghast at the spectacle of what has been wrought by its exercise in the territory of Utah. There stands a power supporting the crime of polygamy through what they call a divine inspiration, or teaching from God, and all the power of the judges of the United States and of the Congress of the United States has been unavailing to break it down. Who have upheld it? Those who in the family circle represent one husband to fifteen women. A continual accumulation of the power of the church and of polygamy is going on, and when the Gentiles, as they are called, enter that territory with the view of breaking it up they are confronted by the women, who are allowed to vote, and from whom we should naturally expect a better and a higher morality in reference to subjects of the kind. But this only shows the power of man over woman. It only shows how through her tender affections, her delicate sensibilities, and her confiding spirit she can be made the very slave and bond-servant of man, and can scarcely ever be made an independent participant in the stronger exercise of the powers which God seems to have intrusted to him. Never was there a picture more disgusting or more condemnatory of the extension of the franchise to women as contradistinguished from men than is presented in the territory of Utah to-day.

Where is the necessity of raising the number of voters in the United States from 10,000,000 to 20,000,000? That would be the direct effect of conferring suffrage upon the women, for they are at least one-half, if not a little more than one-half, of the entire population of the country above the age of twenty-one. We have now masses of voters so enormous in numbers as that it seems to be almost beyond the power of the law to execute the purposes of the elective franchise with justice, with propriety, and without crime. How much would these difficulties and these intrinsic troubles be increased if we should raise the number of voters from 10,000,000 to 20,000,000 in the United States? That would be the direct and immediate effect of conferring the franchise upon the women. What would be the next effect of such an extension of the suffrage? It was described by my friend from Missouri [Mr. Vest] and by other senators who have spoken upon this subject. The effect would be to drive the ladies of the land, as they are termed, the well-bred and well-educated women, the women of nice sensibilities, within their home circle, there to remain, while the ruder of that sex would thrust themselves out on the hustings and at the ballot-box, and fight their way to the polls through negroes and others who are not the best of company even at the polls, to say nothing of the disgrace of association with them. You would paralyze one-third at least of the women of this land by the very vulgarity of the overture made to them that they should go struggling to the polls in order to vote in common with the herd of men. They would not undertake it. The most intelligent and trustworthy part of the suffrage thus placed upon the land would never be available, while that which was not worthy of respect either for its character or for its information would take the matter in hand and move along in the circle of politicians to cast their suffrages at the ballot-box.

As the States to be formed out of the territories are admitted into the Union, they will come stamped with the characteristics which the legislatures of the territories have imprinted upon them; and if after due consideration in those territories the men who have the regulation of public affairs should come to the conclusion that it was best to have woman suffrage, then we can allow them, under existing laws, to go on and perfect their systems and apply for admission into the Union with them as they may choose to adopt them and to shape them. The law upon that subject as it exists is liberal enough, for it gives to the legislatures the right to regulate the qualifications of suffrage. It leaves it to each local community, wherever it may be throughout the territories of the United States, to determine for itself what it may prefer to have.

Is it the object in the raising of this committee only that it shall have so many speeches made, so much talk about it, or is it to be the object of the committee to have legislation brought here? If you bring legislation here, what will you bring? An amendment to the constitution like the fourteenth amendment, or else some provision obligatory upon the territories by which female suffrage shall be allowed there, whether the people want it or whether they do not? For my part, before this session of congress ends I intend to introduce a bill to repeal woman suffrage in the territory of Utah, knowing and believing that that will be the most effectual remedy for the extirpation of polygamy in that unfortunate territory. If you choose to repeal the laws of any territory conferring the right of suffrage upon women you have the power in congress to do it; but there are no measures introduced here and none advocated in that direction. The whole drift of this movement is in the other direction. This committee is sought to be raised either for the accommodation of some senator who wants a chairmanship and a clerk, or it is sought to be raised for the purpose of encouraging a raid on the laws and traditions of this country, which I think would end in our total demoralization, I therefore oppose this measure in the beginning, and I expect to oppose it as far as it may go.

Now let us notice for a moment the case of the District of Columbia. There are some senators here who have given themselves a great deal of trouble in the advocacy of the right of suffrage of the people of the United States, and especially of the colored people. They put themselves to great trouble, and doubtless at some expense of feeling, to worry and beset and harry gentlemen who come from certain States of this Union, in reference to the votes of the negroes: and yet these very gentlemen have been either in this House or in the other when the Republican party has had a two-thirds majority of both branches and has deliberately taken from the people of the District of Columbia the right to elect any officer from a constable to a mayor, all because when the experiment was tried here it was found that the negroes were a little too strong. There was too much African suffrage in the ballot-box, and they must get rid of it, and to get rid of it on terms of equality they have disfranchised every man in the District of Columbia.

I shall have more faith in the sincerity of the declarations of gentlemen of their desire to have the women vote when I see that they have made some step toward the restoration of the right of suffrage to the people of the District of Columbia. While they let this blot remain upon our law, while they allow this damning conviction to stand, they may stare us in the face and accuse us continually of a want of candor and sincerity on this subject, but they will address their arguments to me in vain, even as coming from men who have an infatuation upon the subject. I do not believe a word of it, Mr. President.

I cannot be convinced against these facts that this new movement in favor of female suffrage means anything more than to add another patch to the worn-out garment of Republicanism, which they patched with Mahoneism in Virginia, with repudiation elsewhere, and which they now seek to patch further by putting on the delicate little silk covering of woman suffrage. I do not believe that this movement has its root and branch in any sincere desire to give to the women of this land the right of suffrage. I think it is a mere party movement with a view of attempting to draw into the reach of the Republican party some little support from the sympathy and interest they suppose the ladies will take in their cause if they should advocate it here. No bill, perhaps, is expected to be reported. The committee will sit and listen and profess to be charmed and enlightened and instructed by what may be said, and then the subject will be passed by without any actual effort to secure the passage of a bill.

Introduce your bills and let them go to the Judiciary Committee, where the rights of men are to be considered as well as the rights of women. If this subject is of that pressing national importance which senators seem to think it is, it is not to be supposed that the Committee on the Judiciary will fail to give it profound and early attention. When you bring a select committee forward under the circumstances under which this is to be raised, you must not expect us to give credit generally to the idea that the real purpose is to advance the cause of woman suffrage, but rather that the real purpose is to advance the cause of political domination in this country. I can see no reason for the raising of this select committee, unless it be to furnish some senator, as I have remarked, with a clerk and messenger. If that were the avowed reason or could even be intimated, I think I should be disposed to yield that courtesy to the senator, whoever he might be; but I cannot do it under the false pretext that the real object is to bring forward measures here for the introduction of woman suffrage into the District of Columbia, where we have no suffrage, or into the territories, where they have all the suffrage that the territorial legislatures see proper to give them. I therefore shall oppose the resolution.

Mr. Bayard: I move the that Senate proceed to the consideration of executive business. [The motion was agreed to.]

January 9, 1882.

Mr. Hoar: I now ask for the consideration of the resolution relating to a select committee on woman suffrage.

The President pro tempore: There being ten minutes left of the morning hour, the senator from Massachusetts [Mr. Hoar] asks for the consideration of the resolution relating to woman suffrage. The pending question is on the motion of the senator from Delaware [Mr. Bayard] to refer the subject-matter to the Committee on the Judiciary, on which the yeas and nays have been ordered.

The principal legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.

Mr. Butler (when Mr. Pugh's name was called): I was requested by the senator from Alabama [Mr. Pugh] to announce his pair with the senator from New York [Mr. Miller].

The roll-call was concluded.

Mr. Teller: On this question I am paired with the senator from Alabama [Mr. Morgan]. If the senator from Alabama were present, I should vote "nay."

Mr. McPherson (after having voted in the affirmative): I rise to ask the privilege of withdrawing my vote. I am paired with my colleague [Mr. Sewell] on all political questions, and this seems to have taken a political shape.

The President pro tempore: The senator from New Jersey withdraws his vote.

The result was announced—yeas 27, nays 31. So the motion was not agreed to.

The President pro tempore: The question recurs on the adoption of the resolution.

Mr. Edmunds: Let it be read for information. The secretary read the resolution.

Mr. Edmunds: "Shall" ought to be stricken out and "may" inserted, because the Senate ought always to have the power to refer any particular measure as it pleases.

Mr. Hoar: I have no objection to that modification.

The President pro tempore: The senator from Massachusetts accepts the suggestion of the senator from Vermont, and the word "may" will be substituted for "shall."

Mr. Hill of Georgia: I wish to say that I have opposed all resolutions, whether originating on the other side of the chamber or on this side, appointing special committees. They are all wrong. They are not founded, in my judgment, on a correct principle. There is no necessity to raise a select committee for this business. The standing committees of the Senate are ample to do everything that it is proposed the select committee asked for shall do. The only result of appointing more special committees is to have just that many more clerks, just that much more expense, just that many more committee-rooms. This is not the first time I have opposed the raising of a select committee.

The President pro tempore: The morning hour has expired, and it requires unanimous consent for the senator from Georgia to proceed with his remarks.

January 21, 1882.

Mr. Hoar: I move that the Senate proceed with the consideration of the resolution.

The President pro tempore: If there is no objection, unanimous consent will be assumed.

Mr. Farley and others: I object.

Mr. Hoar: I move that the Senate proceed with the consideration of the resolution.

Mr. Sherman: Let it be proceeded with informally, subject to the call for other business.

The President pro tempore: The question is on the motion of the senator from Massachusetts. [Putting the question.] The Chair is uncertain from the sound and will ask for a division.

The motion was agreed to; there being on a division—ayes 32, noes 20.

The President pro tempore: The resolution is before the Senate and the senator from Georgia [Mr. Hill] has the floor.

Mr. Hill of Georgia: Mr. President, I do not intend to say one word on the subject of woman suffrage. I shall not get into that discussion which was alluded to by the senator from Massachusetts. The senator will remember, if he refreshes his recollection, that when my late colleague, now no longer a senator, made a motion for the appointment of a select committee in relation to the inter-oceanic canal, I opposed it distinctly, though it came from my colleague, upon the ground that the appointment of select committees ought to stop, that it was wrong; and I oppose this resolution for the same reason. I voted against a resolution to raise a select committee offered by a senator on this side of the chamber at the present session, and I have voted against all resolutions of that character.

No senator, in my judgment, will rise in his place in the Senate and say that it is necessary to appoint a special committee to consider the matters referred to in the resolution. It is true I am a member of the committee, and perhaps ought not to refer to it, but we have a standing committee, of which the distinguished senator from Massachusetts [Mr. Hoar] is chairman, the Committee on Privileges and Elections, that, I take occasion to say, is a very proper committee for this matter to go to; and that committee has almost nothing on earth to do. There is but one single subject-matter now before it, and I believe there will be scarcely another question before that committee at this session. There is not a contested election; there is not a dispute about anybody's seat; and yet it is a Committee on Privileges and Elections. What is the reason for going on continually and appointing these select committees, when there are standing committees here, properly organized to consider the very question specified by the resolution, with nothing to do?

Now, I am going to say one other thing, I do not pretend that the purpose I am now about to state is the purpose of the senator from Massachusetts. I have no reflections to make as to what this resolution is intended for, but we do know that there is an idea abroad that select committees are generally appointed for the purpose of giving somebody a chairmanship, that somebody may have a clerk. That is not the case here, I dare say. I do not mean to intimate that it is the case here, but it ought to be put a stop to; it is all wrong. I think, though, that there ought to be a resolution passed by this body giving every senator who has not a committee a clerk. Everybody knows that every chairman of a committee has a clerk in the clerk of that committee. The other senators, at least in my opinion, ought each to have a clerk. I would vote for such a resolution. I believe it would be right, and I believe the country would approve it. Every senator knows that he has more business to attend to here than he can possibly perform. Why, sir, if I were to attend to all the business in the departments and otherwise that my constituents ask me to perform, I could not discharge half my duties in this chamber; and every senator, I dare say, has the same experience. It is to the public interest, therefore, in my judgment, that every senator should have a clerk. I am unable to employ a clerk from my own funds; many other senators are more fortunately situated; but still I must do that or move the appointment of a special committee for the purpose in an indirect way of getting a clerk. It is not right.

It has been said that if senators each have a clerk, for instance, a clerk at $100 a month salary during the session, which would be a very small matter, the members of the other House would each want a clerk. It does not follow. There is a vast difference. A member of the other House represents a narrow district, a single district; a senator represents a whole State. Take the State of New York. There are thirty-three representatives in the House from the State of New York; there are but two senators here from that State. Those two senators in all likelihood have as much business to perform here for their constituents as the thirty-three members of the House. There is, therefore, an eminent reason why a senator should have a clerk and why a member of the House should not.

I cannot vote for the appointment of select committees unless you raise a select committee for every senator in the body so as to give him a clerk. You have appointed select committees for this business and for that. It gives a few men an advantage when the business of the country does not require it, whereas if you appointed a clerk for each senator, with a nominal salary of $100 per month during the session, it would enable every senator to do his work more efficiently both here and for his constituents; it would put all the senators on a just equality; it would be in furtherance of the public interest; and it would avoid what I consider (with all due deference and not meaning to be offensive) the unseemly habit of constantly moving the appointment of select committees in this body. This is all I have to say. I vote against the resolution simply because I am opposed to the appointment of a select committee for this or any other purpose that I can now think of.

The President pro tempore: The question is on the adoption of the resolution.

Mr. Vest called for the yeas and nays, and they were ordered, and the principal legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.

Mr. Jones of Florida (when his name was called): I propose to vote for this resolution, but at the same time I do not regard my vote as in any way committing myself on the subject of female suffrage. If they think an investigation of this subject should be had in this way, I for one am willing to have it. I vote "yea."

Mr. Teller, (when his name was called): On this question I am paired with the senator from Alabama [Mr. Morgan]; otherwise I should vote "yea."

The roll-call having been concluded, the result was announced—yeas 35, nays 23; so the resolution was agreed to.[82]

In the House of Representatives, December 20, 1881.

Mr. White of Kentucky: I ask consent to offer for consideration at this time the resolution which I send to the clerk's desk.

The clerk read as follows:

Resolved, That a select committee of seven members of the House of Representatives be appointed by the Speaker, to whom shall be referred all petitions, bills and resolves providing for the extension of suffrage to women, or for the removal of legal disabilities.

Mr. Mills of Texas: I object.

Mr. Kelley of Pennsylvania: A similar resolution has already been referred to the Committee on Rules.

The Speaker (Mr. Keifer of Ohio): Objection being made to its consideration at this time, the resolution will be referred to the Committee on Rules.

The resolution was referred accordingly.

In the House of Representatives, February 25, 1882.

Mr. Reed of Maine: I rise to make a privileged report. The Committee on Rules, to whom were referred sundry resolutions relating to the subject, have instructed me to report the resolution which I send to the desk.

The clerk read as follows:

Resolved, That a select committee of nine members be appointed, to whom shall be referred all petitions, bills and resolves asking for the extension of suffrage to women or the removal of their legal disabilities.

The Speaker: The question is on the adoption of the report of the Committee on Rules.

Mr. Holman of Indiana: I ask that the latter portion of the resolution be again read. It was not heard in this part of the house.

The resolution was again read.

Mr. Townshend of Illinois: I rise to make a parliamentary inquiry.

The Speaker: The gentleman will state it.

Mr. Townshend: My inquiry is whether that resolution should not go to the House calendar.

The Speaker: It is a privileged report under the rules of the House from the Committee on Rules. The question is on the adoption of the resolution.

Mr. McMillin of Tennessee: I make the point of order that it must lie over for one day.

The Speaker: It is the report of a committee privileged under the rules.

Mr. McMillin: The committee are privileged to report, but under the rule the report has to lie over a day.

The Speaker: The gentleman from Tennessee will oblige the Chair by directing his attention to any rule which requires such a report to lie over one day. It changes no standing rule or order of the House.

Mr. McMillin: It does, by making a change in the number and nature of the committees. All measures of a particular class, the resolution states, must be referred to the proposed committee, whereas heretofore they have been referred to a different committee. Therefore the resolution changes the rules of the House.

The Speaker: The Chair is of opinion the resolution does not rescind or change any standing rule of the House. The question is on the adoption of the resolution.

Mr. Springer: Mr. Speaker, I desire to call the attention of the Chair to the fact that this does distinctly change one of the standing rules of the House. One of the standing rules is—

The Speaker: The Chair has passed on that question, and no appeal has been taken from his decision.

Mr. Springer: I desire to call the attention of the Chair to Rule 10, which specifically provides for the appointment of the full number of committees this House is to have, and this is not one of them.

The Speaker: Not one of the standing committees, but a select committee.

Mr. Springer: That rule provides there shall be a certain number of committees, the names of which are therein given.

Mr. Reed: I sincerely hope this will not be made a matter of technical discussion or debate. It is a matter upon which members of this House must have opinions which they can express by voting, in a very short time, without taking up the attention of the House beyond what is really necessary for a bare discussion of the merits of the question.

Mr. McMillin: Will the gentleman permit me to ask him a question?

Mr. Reed: Certainly.

Mr. McMillin: Would you not, as a parliamentarian, concede that this does change the existing rules of the House?

Mr. Reed: By no manner of means, especially when the accomplished Speaker has decided the other way, and no gentleman has taken an appeal from his decision. [Laughter.]

Mr. McMillin: Then you have no opinion beyond his decision?

The Speaker: The Chair will state to the gentleman from Illinois [Mr. Springer] that this resolution does not change any of the standing committees of the House which are provided for in Rule 10.

Mr. Springer: It provides for a new committee.

The Speaker: It provides for a select committee. The subject was referred to the Committee on Rules by order of the House, and this is a report on the resolution so referred.

Mr. Springer: The rule provides that no standing rule or order of the House shall be rescinded or changed without one day's notice.

The Speaker: The Chair would decide that this does not propose any change or rescinding of any standing rule of the House.

Mr. Springer: Does the Chair hold that the making of a new rule is not a change of the existing rules?

The Speaker: The Chair does not decide anything of the kind.

Mr. Springer: What does the Chair decide?

The Speaker: The Chair does not undertake to decide any such question, for it is not now presented.

Mr. Springer: Is this not a new rule?

The Speaker: It is not.

Mr. Springer: It is not?

The Speaker: It is a provision for a select committee.

Mr. Springer: Can you have a committee without a rule of the House providing for it?

The Speaker: The question is on the adoption of the resolution reported from the Committee on Rules.

Mr. Atkins: On that question I call for the yeas and nays.

The yeas and nays were ordered.

The question was taken and there were—yeas 115, nays 84, not voting 93; so the resolution was carried.[83]

Mr. Reed moved to reconsider the vote by which the resolution was adopted; and also moved that the motion to reconsider be laid on the table. The latter motion was agreed to.

On Monday, March 13, 1882, the Chair announced the appointment of the following gentlemen as the Select Committee on Woman Suffrage authorized by the House: Mr. Camp of New York, Mr. White of Kentucky, Mr. Sherwin of Illinois, Mr. Stone of Massachusetts, Mr. Hepburn of Iowa, Mr. Springer of Illinois, Mr. Vance of North Carolina, Mr. Muldrow of Mississippi and Mr. Stockslager of Indiana.

The Annual Washington Convention was held in Lincoln Hall as usual, January 18, 19, 20, 1882. The afternoon before the convention, at an executive session held at the Riggs House, forty delegates were present from fourteen different States.[84] Among these were five from Massachusetts, and for the first time that State was represented on the platform of the National Association. Mrs. Stanton gave the opening address, and made some amusing criticisms on a recent debate on Senator Hoar's proposition for a special committee on the rights and disabilities of women. Such a committee had been under debate for several years and it was during this convention that the bill passed the Senate.

Invitations to attend the convention were sent to all the members of congress, and many were present during the various sessions. Miss Ellen H. Sheldon, secretary, read the minutes of the last convention, and, instead of the usual dry skeleton of facts, she gave a glowing description of that eventful occasion. Clara B. Colby gave an interesting narration of the progress of woman suffrage in Nebraska, and of the efforts being made to carry the proposition pending before the people, to strike the word "male" from the constitution in the coming November election.