6/4/08
Herstory history
Tri-O's by Herb Kandel
Here we are again in an imaginary voyage to the celestial heavens. There sits Frederick Douglass chatting with Victoria Woodhull.
Douglass: Vickie do you see what is happening down there?
Woodhull: Indeed I do, Fred. Can you believe that it took 136 years for them to catch up with us?
Douglass: Right you are. Old Ulysses S. Grant was running for a second term in 1872 when we challenged him. That was a swell time. The Equal Rights Party nominated you, as the first women to run for President of the United States, and me, the first African-American, as your running mate. We sure raised a lot of eyebrows.
Woodhull: Although women could not vote. We still fought for the right. Remember when------( harp strings play ascending notes)
They said that there was a world of difference between men and women. For instance, we were “frail”, and our physical weakness would make us vulnerable when we had to make contact and mingle with the sometimes unruly crowds, and if there was a brawl we would be the ones to suffer. We would also make the country appear to be weak which would lead to foreign aggression. Another factor to take into consideration was that we could hide extra ballots in our baggy sleeves and stuff them into the ballot box. "Their delicate emotional equilibrium could easily upset by a strain---like voting." and "When women generally vote and hold office, nervous prostration, desire for publicity and 'love of the limelight' will combine to produce a form of hysteria already increasing in the United States." they concluded, “Remember - Eve got what she wanted and we've had trouble ever since.” For all those reasons, said the anti-suffragists, women should not be allowed to vote.
Even the Supreme Court supported this view. “The paramount destiny and mission of woman are to fulfill the noble and benign offices of wife and mother. This is the law of the Creator.” Wrote Justice Bradley in his concurring opinion in 1872 denying a woman membership to the state bar.
In 1870, the 15th Amendment was adopted, granting African-American men the right to vote. On June 4, 1919 (almost 50 years later) the 19th Amendment, guaranteeing women the right to vote, passed the U.S. Senate.
The crusade for the female right to vote started back in the summer of 1848. The suffragists were spearheaded by Lucretia Mott, a Quaker teacher who organized women's abolitionist groups, and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, also a reformer and abolitionist who gathered a group of similar thinkers to Seneca Falls, New York. There they drafted The " Declaration of Sentiments” which mirrored the "Declaration of Independence": "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men and women are created equal.". It was at those meetings where they met Susan B. Anthony who shared an almost identical background. Stanton evolved as the “go-to” person for putting ideas into writing while Anthony, unmarried, became the organizer, the person who was on the road giving speeches and becoming the target for the misogynists.
Another group, was formed by Julia Ward Howe (author of The Battle Hymn Of The Republic) and Lucy Stone in the same year in Boston. It wasn't until 1869 when women’s suffrage had its first success when the territory of Wyoming gave women the vote. In 1890, when they were admitted into the U. S. As a state, Wyoming became the first state with women suffrage.
In 1900 Utah, Colorado, and Idaho joined Wyoming in giving women the franchise. In 1912, the Progressive (Bull Moose) Party of Theodore Roosevelt became the first national political party to recognize the women’s efforts by including a plank supporting their suffrage in the party platform.This was a “bully” beam of light for this long uphill tunnel of obstacles they were navigating.
By this time American society was experiencing a far-reaching change in the role of women. There were more women in the work force, getting better education, penetrating professions denied them before, bearing fewer children, and increasing the ranks of voices seeking equality. In 1916 both the Democratic and Republican parties were ready to embrace female enfranchisement.
It was Tennessee, in 1920, that became the 36th state to ratify the 19th amendment of the previous year (by one vote) thus providing the two-thirds majority to make it officially the law of the land -------- ( harp strings play descending notes)
Douglass: Ah, yes, we've come a long way, Vickie. Look down there again. You can realize the apex of these hard fought amendment intentions. A current recipient of the each of those constitutional rights is now vying for the office you sought. Do you think that Hillary and Barack will replicate a page of our history and team up?
Woodhull: Who knows? But I sure wish them better results than we had. And maybe someday there will be a Hillary R. Clinton likeness on a dollar coin.
http://www.baldwincountynow.com/articles/2008/06/06/columnists/doc48459d0ab3cd0771952021.txt
