of the republic depends upon the careful performance of the duties of both. One is just as necessary as the other to the growth and prosperity of the country. All of these propositions are self-evident, but they are wholly foreign to the question at issue. The right of the individual to a vote is not founded upon the value of his stake in government, upon his moral character, his business ability or his physical strength, but simply and solely upon that guarantee of personal representation which is the essence of a true republic, a true democracy.
The literal definition of these two terms is, "a State in which the sovereign power resides in the whole body of the people and is exercised by representatives elected by them." By the Declaration of Independence, by the rules of equity, by the laws of justice, women equally with men are entitled to exercise this sovereign power, through the franchise, the only legal means provided. But whatever may be regarded as the correct basis of suffrage—character, education, property, or the inherent right of the person who is subject to law and taxation—women possess all the qualifications required of men.
At this dawn of a new century are not the sons of the Revolutionary Fathers sufficiently progressive to remove the barriers which for more than a hundred years have prevented women from exercising this citizen's right? We appeal to this great national delegate body, representing the men of every State, gathered to outline the policy and select the head of the Government for the next four years, to adopt in your platform a declaration approving the submission by Congress of an amendment enfranchising women. We urge this action in order that the question shall be carried to the various Legislatures, where women may present their arguments before the representative men, instead of being compelled to plead their cause before each individual voter of the forty-one States where they are still disfranchised.
We make this earnest appeal on behalf of the hundreds of thousands of women who, from year to year, have petitioned Congress to take the action necessary for their enfranchisement; and of those millions who are so engrossed in the struggle for daily bread, or in the manifold duties of the home, that they are compelled to leave this task to others. We make it also on behalf of the generations yet to come, for there will be no cessation of this demand until this highest privilege of citizenship has been accorded to women.
| Elizabeth Cady Stanton, | } | Honorary Presidents. |
| Susan B. Anthony, | ||
| Carrie Chapman Catt, President. | ||
| Harriet Taylor Upton, Treasurer. | Anna Howard Shaw, Vice-President-at-Large. | |
| Laura Clay, First Auditor. | Rachel Foster Avery, Corresponding Secretary. | |
| Catharine Waugh McCulloch, Second Auditor. | Alice Stone Blackwell, Recording Secretary. | |
| Headquarters, National-American Woman Suffrage Association, | ||
| 2008 American Tract Society Building, | ||
| New York City. | ||
Four women were permitted to appear before a sub-committee of the Committee on Platform at the Republican National Convention at Philadelphia, in 1900. They met with a polite but chilly reception and were informed that they could have ten minutes to present their case. This time was occupied by the president and the vice-president-at-large in concise but forcible arguments on the duty of the party to recognize their claim for enfranchisement. The platform eventually contained the following plank:
We congratulate the women of America upon their splendid record of public service in the Volunteer Aid Association, and as nurses in camp and hospital during the recent campaigns of our armies in the Eastern and Western Indies, and we appreciate their faithful co-operation in all works of education and industry.
In other words, being asked to recognize women as political factors, the committee responded by commending them as nurses!
This plank was written by Mrs. J. Ellen Foster, who as president of the Woman's National Republican League and a campaign speaker, has done far more for the party than any other woman, and originally it ended with this clause: "We regard with satisfaction their unselfish interest in public affairs in the four States where they have already been enfranchised, and their growing interest in good government and Republican principles." But even so small a recognition as this of women in political life was ruthlessly struck out by the committee.
Mrs. Chapman Catt and Miss Mary G. Hay attended the Democratic National Convention at Kansas City and were not allowed to address any committee, but the platform contained the Declaration of Independence as its preamble!
The Populist national platform adopted at Sioux City did not contain even a reference to women or their rights and privileges.
The Prohibition convention followed its action of 1896 and put no woman suffrage plank in its platform. A separate resolution was passed expressing a favorable regard but carrying no official weight.
The only national political convention in 1900 which adopted a plank declaring for the enfranchisement of women was that of the Social-Democratic party at Indianapolis.
In not one of the four largest parties were the delegates in convention given so much as an opportunity to discuss and vote on a resolution to enfranchise women. All these heroic efforts, all these noble appeals, had not the slightest effect because made by a class utterly without influence by reason of this very disfranchisement which it was struggling to have removed. At every political convention all matters of right, of justice, of the eternal verities themselves, are swallowed up in the one all-important question, "Will it bring party success?" And to this a voteless constituency can not contribute in the smallest degree, even though it represent the Ten Commandments, the Sermon on the Mount, the Golden Rule, the Magna Charta and the Declaration of Independence.
Paradoxical as it may seem, notwithstanding the refusal of the Resolutions Committees of all these national bodies to grant even an indirect recognition of woman suffrage in their platforms, its advocates never before found such a general sentiment in its favor among the individual delegates. In a number of instances they were told that a poll of delegations had shown a majority of the members to be ready to vote for it. It was demonstrated beyond doubt that the rank and file of the delegates, if freed from hostile influences among their constituents and granted the sanction of the political leaders, could be won to a support of the measure, but that at present it must wait on party expediency. As every campaign brings with it national issues on which each party makes a fight for its life, and which it fears to hamper by any extraneous questions; as the elements most strongly opposed to the enfranchisement of women not only are fully armed with ballots themselves but are in complete control of an immense force similarly equipped; and as the vote of women is so problematical that none of the parties can claim it in advance, it is impossible to foresee when and how they are to obtain political freedom. The one self-evident fact is, however, that in order to win it they must be supported by a stronger public sentiment than exists at present, and that this can be secured only through a constant agitation of the subject.
A return to Miss Anthony's report will illustrate other methods adopted to bring this question to the attention of the public. "During the year I have also sent petitions and letters to more than one hundred national conventions of different sorts—industrial, educational, charitable, philanthropic, religious and political.149 Below are the forms of petition:"
To the Senate and House of Representatives of the Fifty-sixth Congress of the United States:
The undersigned on behalf of (naming the association) in annual convention assembled at ......, ......, 1900, and representing fully ...... members, respectfully ask for the prompt passage by your Honorable Body of a Sixteenth Amendment to the Federal Constitution, to be submitted to the Legislatures of the several States for ratification, prohibiting the disfranchisement