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The Vote
MRS. LUCY STONE: — Mrs. Stanton will, of Amendment passed without the XVIth, for
course, advocate the precedence for her sex, and woman would have a race of tyrants raised above
Mr. Douglass will strive for the first position for her in the South, and the black women of that
his, and both are perhaps right. If it be true that the country would also receive worse treatment than
government derives its authority from the consent if the Amendment was not passed. Take any class
of the governed, we are safe in trusting that princi- that have been slaves, and you will find that they
ple to the uttermost. If one has a right to say that are the worst when free, and become the hardest
you can not read and therefore can not vote, then masters. The colored women of the South say
it may be said that you are a woman and therefore they do not want to get married to the negro, as
can not vote. We are lost if we turn away from the their husbands can take their children away from Document Project
middle principle and argue for one class. . . . The them, and also appropriate their earnings. The
gentleman who addressed you claimed that the black women are more intelligent than the men,
negroes had the first right to the suffrage, and drew because they have learned something from their
a picture which only his great word-power can mistresses. She then related incidents showing
do. He again in Massachusetts, when it had cast how black men whip and abuse their wives in
a majority in favor of Grant and negro suffrage, the South. One of her sister’s servants whipped
stood upon the platform and said that woman had his wife every Sunday regularly. (Laughter.) She
better wait for the negro; that is, that both could thought that sort of men should not have the
not be carried, and that the negro had better be making of the laws for the government of the
the one. But I freely forgave him because he felt women throughout the land. (Applause.)
as he spoke. But woman suffrage is more impera- MR. DOUGLASS said that all disinter-
tive than his own; and I want to remind the audi- ested spectators would concede that this Equal
ence that when he says what the Ku-Kluxes did all Rights meeting had been pre-eminently a Wom-
over the South, the Ku-Kluxes here in the North an’s Rights meeting. (Applause.) They had just
in the shape of men, take away the children from heard an argument with which he could not
the mother, and separate them as completely as if agree — that the suffrage to the black men should
done on the block of the auctioneer. . . . Woman be postponed to that of the women. . . . “I do not
has an ocean of wrongs too deep for any plummet, believe the story that the slaves who are enfran-
and the negro, too, has an ocean of wrongs that chised become the worst of tyrants. (A voice,
can not be fathomed. There are two great oceans; ‘Neither do I.’ Applause.) I know how this the-
in the one is the black man, and in the other is the ory came about. When a slave was made a driver,
woman. But I thank God for that XV. Amendment, he made himself more officious than the white
and hope it will be adopted in every State. I will be driver, so that his master might not suspect that
thankful in my soul if any body can get out of the he was favoring those under him. But we do not
terrible pit. But I believe that the safety of the gov- intend to have any master over us. (Applause.)”
ernment would be more promoted by the admis- THE PRESIDENT (MRS. STANTON)
sion of woman as an element of restoration and argued that not another man should be enfran-
harmony than the negro. I believe that the influ- chised until enough women are admitted to
ence of woman will save the country before every the polls to outweigh those already there.
other power. (Applause.) I see the signs of times (Applause.) She did not believe in allowing
pointing to this consummation, and I believe that ignorant negroes and foreigners to make laws for
in some parts of the country women will vote for her to obey. (Applause.)
the President of the United States in 1872. . . . MRS. [Frances Ellen Watkins] HARPER
MRS. PAULINE W. DAVIS said she would (colored) said that when it was a question of
not be altogether satisfied to have the XVth race, she let the lesser question of sex go. But the

359
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