Women -- Suffrage -- History; Women -- Suffrage -- United States -- History; Women's rights -- History; Women's rights -- United States -- History
But it unfortunately happens that in this world there are others
besides the negro who suffer. When you have told of the injuries
and outrages which prevail on the earth in regard to the negro
you have not finished. Another, and in my judgment a much more
important personage, comes upon the scene; she lifts the curtain
and reveals to you a new drama, and she tells you distinctly that
you have not only been tyrannizing over your brother, your sable
brother, your brother at the other end of the national antipodes,
your troublesome antipathic brother; you have not only been
drenching the earth from the East to the far West with the blood
of savages of a different color from yours; you have not only
left your blood-stained marks in Japan, in China, in the East
Indies, everywhere, and in the West, where one of your Christian
bishops boasted that six million Mexicans at one time had been
sacrificed, and what for? To make them Christians; to make the
rest Christians after the six millions had gone. I say this new
personage who makes her appearance upon the drama of human
affairs informs you that you and your religion, under the conduct
of the male, generative, fecundative principle of the sex, have
filled the world with blood from one end to the other of it. What
for? To give her liberty. She complains to-day; she complains in
your most intelligent high places; she complains in your most
refined cities; she complains in your halls decorated with a more
than Grecian beauty of architecture; she complains where all of
past civilization, all of past adornment, and all of past
education comes down to satisfy us that we stand upon the very
acme of human progress; she complains that you have been tyrant
to her. Mr. President, let me read from the proceedings of the
Twenty-ninth Annual Meeting of the Pennsylvania Anti-Slavery
Society. I propose to read from the remarks of Mrs. Gage, a
woman, a lady, a lady of brain and intellect, of courage and
force; and whether I am in earnest or not, whether I may be
charged with being serious or not, no man dare charge Mrs. Gage
with not being serious. Mrs. Frances D. Gage said: "I have read
speeches and heard a great deal said about the right of suffrage
for the freedmen." So have we all, Mr. President; and the
probability is that we have been even more afflicted if that can
be said to be a punishment, and there is very great difficulty
now to ascertain what is punishment in this world. If that can be
said to be a punishment, I think this Senate can with at least
equal propriety with Mrs. Gage, complain of its extraordinary
infliction upon them without any previous trial and conviction.
[Laughter]. "What does it mean? Does it mean the male freedman
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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