Women -- Suffrage -- History; Women -- Suffrage -- United States -- History; Women's rights -- History; Women's rights -- United States -- History
Mrs ROSE said: After all, we come down to the root of all
evil--to money. It is rather humiliating, after the discourse
that we have just heard, that told us of the rise, and progress,
and destruction of nations, of empires, and of republics, that we
have to come down to dollars and cents. We live in an entirely
practical age. I can show you in a few words that if we only had
sufficient of that root of all evil in our hands, there would be
no need of holding these meetings. We could obtain the elective
franchise without making a single speech. Give us $1,000,000, and
we will have the elective franchise at the very next session of
our Legislature. (Laughter and applause). But as we have not the
$1,000,000 we want 1,000,000 voices. There are always two ways of
obtaining an object. If we had had the money, we could have
bought the Legislature and the elective franchise long before
now. But as we have not, we must create a public opinion, and for
that we must have voices.
I have always thought I was convinced not only of the necessity
but of the great importance of obtaining the elective franchise
for woman; but recently I have become satisfied that I never felt
sufficiently that importance until now. Just read your public
papers and see how our Senators and our members of the House are
running round through the Southern States to hold meetings, and
to deliver public addresses. To whom? To the freedmen. And why
now, and why not ten, fifteen, or twenty years ago? Why do they
get up meetings for the colored men, and call them fellow-men,
brothers, and gentlemen? Because the freedman has that talisman
in his hands which the politician is looking after? Don't you
perceive, then, the importance of the elective franchise? Perhaps
when we have the elective franchise in our hands, these great
senators will condescend to inform us too of the importance of
obtaining our rights.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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