Debate on Woman Suffrage in the Senate of the United States,: 2d Session, 49th Congress, December 8, 1886, and January 25, 1887Various
History
Debate on Woman Suffrage in the Senate of the United States,: 2d Session, 49th Congress, December 8, 1886, and January 25, 1887
Various
Women -- Suffrage -- United States
As bearing upon the extent of this agitation, I have many other
letters of the same character and numerous arguments by women upon
this subject, but I can not ask the attention of the Senate to them,
for what I most of all want is a vote. I desire a record upon this
question. However, I ought to read this letter, which is dated Salina,
Kans., December 13, 1886. The writer is Mrs. Laura M. Johns. She is
connected with the suffrage movement in that State, and as bearing
upon the extent of this movement and as illustrative not only of the
condition of the question in Kansas, but very largely throughout the
country, perhaps, especially throughout the northern part of the
country, I read this and leave others of like character, as they are,
because we have not the time:
I am deeply interested in the fate of the now pending resolution
proposing an amendment to the Constitution of the United States,
conferring upon women the exercise of the suffrage. The right is
theirs now.
I see, in speaking to that resolution on December 8 in the Senate,
that you refer to Miss Anthony's experiences in the October
campaign in Kansas as evidence in part of the growth of interest
in this movement, and of sentiment favorable to it, and I am
writing now just to tell you about it.
When I planned and arranged for those eleven conventions in eleven
fine cities of this State, I thought I knew that the people of
Kansas felt a strong interest in the question of woman suffrage;
but when with Miss Anthony and others I saw immense audiences
of Kansas people receive the gospel of equal suffrage with
enthusiasm, saw them sitting uncomfortably crowded, or standing to
listen for hours to arguments in favor of suffrage for women: saw
the organization of strong and ably officered local, county, and
district associations of the best and "brainiest" men and women in
our first cities for the perpetuation of woman suffrage teachings;
saw people of the highest social, professional, and business
position give time, money and influence, to this cause; saw
Miss Anthony's life work honored and her fêted and most highly
commended, I concluded that I had before known but half of the
interest and favorable sentiment in Kansas on this question. These
meetings were very largely attended, and by all classes, and
by people of all shades of religious and political belief. The
representative people of the labor party were there, ministers,
lawyers, all professions, and all trades.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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