Today in Herstory: Mass Meeting Held to Edit the US Constitution to Give Women the Vote

[niyad]

Today in Herstory: Mass Meeting Held to Edit the US Constitution to Give Women the Vote

May 7, 1894: A lively and well-attended mass meeting was held at Cooper Union in Manhattan earlier this evening, and there certainly seemed to be plenty of people willing to do whatever it takes to remove a single word from the New York State Constitution, which presently grants the right to vote to “every male citizen of the age of 21 years.”



Elizabeth Cady Stanton was given a rousing ovation even before she began speaking, and deservedly so, considering her nearly 46 years of work for suffrage. She noted just how basic a right voting should be, and the injustice of arbitrarily withholding it from entire groups:
“The State has no right to abolish the suffrage for any class of people. I remember when the enfranchisement of the Negro was the vital question of the hour. In one of the debates on the floor of the Senate, Charles Sumner said: ‘Do you tell me suffrage is a privilege? Allow that sentiment to crystallize in the hearts of the people and we have rung the death knell of American Liberty.’ “

She then addressed a common opposition argument that only those who may be called to serve on the battlefield should have a vote: “They talk of fighting. It seems to me those who have been able to meet persecution, ridicule and tears have done the best kind of fighting.”

“It was twenty years ago, and a gentleman was talking of this same question of suffrage to my mother. ‘But Mrs. Stanton,’ he said, ‘if you have the franchise you could not protect it. You cannot fight.’ ‘Yes I can,’ she replied. ‘I should fight just as you did. I should hire someone to go in my place.’ “

. . . .

http://feminist.org/blog/index.php/2015/05/07/today-in-herstory-mass-meeting-held-to-edit-the-us-constitution-to-give-women-the-vote/

Her daughter, Harriot Stanton Blatch, spoke next, elaborating on the point that military service has never been a requirement for male suffrage, and that during the Civil War, many voting men avoided military service by hiring substitutes:

[Novara]

1. I believe if they could keep women and minorities from voting they'd do so.

They're already making it harder for minorities to vote.

[niyad]

2. and there have actually been a few reichwingnutjobs who actually talk about eliminating

women's right to vote. in THIS country, in THIS century!!

[Novara]

3. It really is astonishing how far backwards they are trying to take us, isn't it?

And that they think this won't bite them in the ass.