The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 1 of 2): Including Public Addresses, Her Own Letters and Many From Her Contemporaries During Fifty YearsHarper, Ida Husted
History
The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 1 of 2): Including Public Addresses, Her Own Letters and Many From Her Contemporaries During Fifty Years
Harper, Ida Husted
Anthony, Susan B. (Susan Brownell), 1820-1906
Women and colored men are loyal, liberty-loving citizens, and we
can not believe that sex or complexion should be any ground for
civil or political degradation. Against such outrage on the very
name of a republic we do and ever must protest; and is not our
protest against this tyranny of "taxation without representation"
as just as that thundered from Bunker Hill, when our Revolutionary
fathers fired the shot which shook the world?... We respectfully
and earnestly pray that, in restoring the foundations of our
nationality, all discriminations on account of sex or race may be
removed; and that our government may be republican in fact as well
as form; A GOVERNMENT BY THE PEOPLE, AND THE WHOLE PEOPLE; FOR THE
PEOPLE, AND THE WHOLE PEOPLE.
This was the last convention ever held in the old historic Church of
the Puritans. It soon passed into other hands, and where once sparkled
and scintillated flashes of repartee and gems of oratory, now glitter
and shine the magnificent jewels in the great establishment of Tiffany.
After this May Anniversary Miss Anthony prepared to go before the New
York Constitutional Convention with speeches and petitions for the
recognition of women in the new constitution. The necessary
arrangements involved an immense amount of labor, and her diary says:
"My trips from Albany to New York and back are like the flying of the
shuttle in the loom of the weaver." At this hearing, June 27, 1867,
after Mrs. Stanton had finished her address she announced that they
would answer any questions, whereupon Mr. Greeley said in his drawling
monotone: "Miss Anthony, you know the ballot and the bullet go
together. If you vote, are you ready to fight?" Instantly she retorted:
"Yes, Mr. Greeley, just as you fought in the late war--at the point of
a goose-quill!" After the merriment had subsided, he continued: "When
should this inalienable right of suffrage commence for young men and
foreigners? Have we the right to say when it shall begin?" Miss Anthony
replied: "My right as a human being is as good as that of any other
human being. If you have a right to vote at twenty-one, then I have.
All we ask is that you shall take down the bars and let the women and
the negroes in, then we will settle all these matters." The Tribune
report said this was received with "loud and prolonged applause."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account