The Forgotten Feminist of Kansas, 4
The Papers of Clarina I. H. Nichols, 1854-1885
Edited by JOSEPH G. GAMBONE
Winter 1973 (Vol. 39, No. 4), pages 515 to 563
Transcribed by Barbara J. Scott; edited by Tod Roberts;
digitized with permission of
The Kansas Historical Society.
IV. THE PAPERS, 1867-1868
[TO THE EDITOR OF THE VERMONT PHOENIX] [1]
QUINDARO, KANSAS
Feb. 24th, 1867
Mr. Editor:
From your correspondence, editorials and reports of Lyceum debates, I infer that the question of "women's rights" has not gone backward in Windham County. The fact reminds me however of a remark made to my own mother by a prominent citizen of your village -- since deceased, poor man, of the bottle -- to whom she was unknown, that Mrs. Nichols had left on the cars for Kansas, and he was glad of it. "Why," asked my mother, "was she not a good member of society?" "Well, she kept the whole community in a fuss about women's rights and temperance." It must have been good seed, Mr. Editor, sown in good soil and watered by a Divine benevolence, for after twelve years I find it has struck its roots too deep to fail ultimately of a legitimate harvest.
Kansas has set the example to the rest of the States in restoring to women personal and property rights abrogated by marriage, an equal right with the fathers to their children, and a vote in all school matters. Her Legislature now in session is the first to strike the word male from her constitution, submitting the amendment to the people at their next general election. [2] The people will adopt the amendment, and Mrs. Nichols can say to her old friends in Windham Co., that when "she buried herself in Kansas," she found a generous soil. [3] Let dear Old Vermont fall into line, and she may exclaim with Simeon of old.
But this is not what I took my pen to write. Your "Own Correspondent" seems to be floundering, in waters beyond his depth, and not very clear as to the direction in which he should swim to reach the shore, and I would fain throw him a hint and a rope. He says: --
For about this matter there is this peculiarity, that many women, high-toned, intelligent, and with no superior so far as we know, hold, as a position of reason and conscience that it is not well for women to enter openly into politics. To throw the suffrage open, then, will either compel them to vote in order to counterbalance the vote of those who ignorantly or carelessly become instruments of intriguing politicians; or in consequence of their staying at home would give fresh power, and perhaps the control of affairs, into the hands of those able to secure the largest number of votes of ignorant and careless women. And thus they would have to violate their sense of propriety and right or bear the charge of responsibility for the wrong done to society that their votes might have prevented. This does not look to me like justice or wisdom. Then, so far from that being the time to consider whether they had better exercise the right to vote, it would be that in which voting would be so imperative a duty that the only question should be how they could best and most certainly do it. Not an easy question for mothers kept at home by children coming or newly come. [4]
As for its being an imperative duty to vote, or do anything else in violation of our sense of right, the proposition strikes me as absurd and anti-Christian. Women who know how to vote aright themselves should be able to teach the ignorant and reclaim the careless of either sex. The proportion of women kept at home from church or party by "children coming or newly come," is very small, and as "ignorant and careless women" are equally liable to these hindrances to outside duties, the effect would be similar to the "pairing" of members in our Legislatures. It would be quite as sensible for "high-toned and intelligent women," kept from the polls by such emergencies, to find it difficult to decide the question of detaining husbands and M. D's. from the polls also. When the males were "kept" in the army, it would have saved the States millions of money if the women could have exercised the right of suffrage; they would have routed the copperheads, whose sense of responsibility kept them at home "horse, foot and dragoon." The State will yet come to see that the disfranchisement of women has been a very expensive policy, as well as a great wrong.
But, Mr. Editor, there is an answer to all these petty objections to woman-suffrage. Each and every reason, yet given, why women, as a class, should not have and exercise the right of suffrage, is equally conclusive against its possession by men. Some men are kept from the polls by illness of themselves or families; by conscientious scruples about mingling in the "muddy pool of politics," by lack of property qualifications, and some by lack of brains, and many "become instruments of intriguing politicians." These exceptional conditions, if valid against the enfranchisement of women, should long ago have disfranchised every male voter. Men do not admit that fathers, brothers and sons can represent each other; all the adult males of the family must have the right to vote. In Kansas the "white males" armed themselves against the enforcement of laws good in themselves, because they had been prevented from voting in the organization of the Government that assumed to legislate for them. They called the Government imposed on them by Missouri votes, "bogus."
Our reputed republican or democratic governments are all bogus governments to disfranchised woman. But we only arm ourselves with arguments and facts to achieve our enfranchisement; we neither resist the laws made for us nor refuse to pay our taxes. The hour of universal freedom is coming for us without violence. Those who have fought the oppressor, and freed the slave and demand suffrage for him, will not forget the women who prayed and wept and wrought for them in the battlefield, in hospital and rebel prison. We have been on a political equality with the negro too long not to be lifted with him now. [5]
C. I. H. NICHOLS
[TO THE EDITOR OF THE KANSAS FARMER] [6]
QUINDARO, [KANSAS]
March 21, 1867
[Editor Kansas Farmer:]
As an amendment striking out the word "male" from the constitution is to be submitted to the voters of Kansas at the next general election, it seems expedient that the subject be properly presented through the public press. I believe the amendment will secure a fair majority. I believe it for the reason that the antecedents of Kansas and the sentiment of Republicanism point in this direction. Kansas has already taken a long stride in advance of "the Fathers," in securing civil rights to women. Our fathers commenced their governmental career with the declarations that, "Taxation without representation is tyranny"; that "All governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed." But with singular inconsistency, almost their first act ignored the political existence of one-half the people of the state -- its women! Then, as if they would verify the injustice of the powers they had usurped, they proceeded to tax all the single women, and legally execute the married, until, in legal parlance, the married woman was dead in law. The estate, earnings, clothing, children and person of the married woman being alienated to the husband, she was paupered, childless, dead in law! Thus was wrested from the mothers of humanity, rights declared natural to, and inherent in, humanity itself!
The voters of Kansas nobly vindicated their manhood in securing to the women of the state, by constitutional enactment, their personal and property rights, right to children and to vote in school matters. The convention would have done more -- excluded the word male from the Constitution -- but for the fear that the democracy (?) -- in reality equally liberal on the subject -- might seize upon the popular prejudice against "women's rights," and defeat its adoption by the people. Your correspondent has ever believed that the constitution would have secured a majority vote with "male" stricken out. It is proved by the history of ages, far easier to enact just laws than to amend by radical changes. Lawyers are more tenacious of "the harmony of the statutes," than the harmony of justice; and a people is less earnest for the amendment of laws to which they have adjusted themselves, and whose burdens they have learned to bear. And when the burdens are borne by a disfranchised class, why should the jade not galled, wince?
There is no doubt that a large proportion of the people of Kansas, taking a cursory view of the subject and magnifying the great accession of rights to the women of Kansas, over women of other states -- are satisfied that we have all the rights we want, while a respectable minority, in point of numbers, think rights that we have should be taken from us. But these are the conclusions of thoughtlessness. A proper presentation and consideration of the subject will convince the majority that justice and expediency require the enfranchisement of all classes of adult citizens, as the direct and only means for securing full protection and development of the social, intellectual, material and political interests of the state.
What is demanded in justice is always the highest expediency; what is right is always in accord with a divine harmony. Unity is strength, and in the enfranchisement of all is the strongest bond of union. For very shame, the voters of Kansas should ratify the amendments striking out the words white and male from the constitution. [7] They cannot consistently retain either, for did they not present an armed resistance to laws, good in themselves, on the sole ground that they had been prevented from organizing the government that assumed to legislate for them? They declared that the government initiated by votes from Missouri was "bogus," and resisted taxation under it. The present government of Kansas is "bogus" to the women and blacks of the state. Are these unrepresented classes subjected, honorably, to taxation? Is the government which exists without their consent, just in compelling their obedience to its laws? Will not a manly sense of honor compel our enfranchisement? By my faith in the noble independence of prejudice of the men of Kansas, I believe it will.
To the men of to-day it has been left to give full practical effect to the doctrines of "the Fathers." What the fathers apprehended clearly, but applied partially, their sons are privileged to enforce for the benefit of all -- to govern by "the consent of the governed," and thus inaugurate just government. [8]
C. I. H. NICHOLS.
[TO THE EDITORS OF THE WYANDOTTE COMMERCIAL GAZETTE] [9]
QUINDARO, [KANSAS]
May 28, 1867
Messrs. Editors Gazette:
I have been waiting some weeks for what "Philo" proposed to say upon "woman suffrage," thinking, that possibly some new argument might be made upon the subject. [10] But I have waited in vain for any thing touching the question in its general aspect. I do indeed find in his article in your last week's issue, [11] a battering-ram aimed at colored-woman suffrage, but its hours are the hours of imagination and wonderfully misdirected for an effective onslaught, at that. The argument is wanting.
"Philo" says, "the colored women are proposed to be made equal with you and I (me would be more grammatical and in better keeping with Latin grammar) in the administration of this Government!" A most humiliating prospect truly for mean men, but a grand chance for those noble souls, who grow in moral stature by elevating such as, having suffered oppressions which "you and I" cannot be levelled to -- will come up like the trampled chamomile, and make it an honor to be on an equality with them, in their simple, earnest faith in the possibilities of christian politics.
He says, "There is not one colored man in fifty, in the state of Kansas, who is fit to exercise the elective franchise; and not one colored woman in five hundred, who could vote intelligently upon any question of a national character." Perhaps "Philo" is correct, but we have only his assertion to prove either the unfitness or the disparity, in point of intelligence, of colored men and women. And how are they to be made fit to exercise the elective franchise for "Philo" does not hint perpetual disfranchisement of colored citizens? So long as they have no right to the elective franchise, they have no motive to fit themselves, and politicians have no motive to enlighten them in the uses of the ballot.
Give them the ballot, and men like "Philo," who are content to keep them under foot, will put themselves on an equality, so far as to solicit their votes with reasons why, &c. This, would not be "the arts of the demagogue and political trickster"; ah no, it is always somebody else that "would abuse so sacred a right." But the imaginative powers of "Philo" are taxed. He continues, "Imagine three or four hundred colored women next November, marching to the polls to exercise this highest prerogative of the freeman, each one carrying in her arms a squalling brat" &c. -- A higher flight of the flight of the imagination than Philo intended us to take, when we consider that each of these children (brat is a low term Philo, unfit for "you and I" on stilts) is a prospective voter, destined to "exercise the highest prerogative of the freeman." It is an armful of reasons why its mother should exercise the high prerogative and take it with her, if she cannot get to the polls without. Incapable as she is of "giving an intelligent vote on any question of a national character," the colored woman would have her race free, and left white male voters to question their own intelligence in this national question.
And now Messrs. Editors, I await Philo's reasons against suffrage for white women. [12]
Very Respectfully,
C. I. H. NICHOLS,
[TO THE EDITORS OF THE WESTERN HOME JOURNAL] [13]
QUINDARO, [KANSAS]
June 18th, 1867
Editor Home Journal: --
My attention having been called, by your correspondent in this place, to the communication of a certain Hon. (?) Mr. [Charles V.] Eskridge on the subject of female suffrage, [14] I beg to occupy a brief space in your columns -- not to reply to, or even criticise, an article that fills me with shame for the man who could think, much more indite it for publication. But as a personal friend and long-time acquaintance of Lucy Stone, [15] I feel called upon to contradict, point blank, the imputation of "free love" upon her belief, teachings or practice. [16]
From the first, in her anti-slavery lectures, Lucy Stone denounced slavery for its desecration of the marriage relation. In the early days of the Woman's Rights movement, Stephen Pearl Andrews, [17] the head, or leader, in the free-love abomination, called upon Lucy Stone, myself and one other of the active women's rights advocates, to "ascertain how far his reform," as he called it, "would be countenanced by the women's rights party." [18] The scorching rebuke he met from Lucy Stone satisfied the gentleman, as it would the Hon. Eskridge, if unprejudiced, that neither free-love nor its advocates would be tolerated on the platform dedicated to woman's rights. And allow me to say for the information of those who are strangers to her private life and manifold public labors, that in the East, where Lucy Stone has lived down the assaults of pro-slavery demagogues, no copperhead or "brawling, politicians" can be found to assail her moral character, however they may ignore her "bill of rights." [19]
The Hon. Eskridge's intimation that her relations with Henry Blackwell [20] are illegal, is a gross slander. It is well known that in several, if not in all the Eastern and Middle States, forms of marriage vary; all are legal if recognized as such by statute. The personal declaration of a couple of intention of marriage, before a justice of the Peace or Notary Public, is one form, not often resorted to in modern days. The Friends declare in public meeting. Lucy Stone and Henry Blackwell were legally and publicly married some ten years ago. Her marriage was published by every press in the East, with various comments upon the form, but without question of the legality of the marriage. [21]
The ballot-box gathers around it nothing more vile and destructive to social and domestic happiness, than slanders like this, and offers to women the means for lessening their influence by ejecting them from official positions. To my thinking, men horrified at the idea of women's ears being assailed with rude and obscene language at the polls, should abstain from writing such communications for women and children to read in their homes; and the conclusion is legitimate, that if women can read the Hon. Eskridge's "billingsgate" without taint to their morals and womanliness, they can meet it unharmed in the "political arena." [22]
At the risk of being identified as one of the "petticoated old Eves," I subscribe myself,
Very respectfully yours,
C. I. H. NICHOLS
[TO SAMUEL N. WOOD] [23]
QUINDARO, [KANSAS]
June 19th, 1867
Friend Wood,
[Your last] letter is more satisfactory, tho' I must say that [having read] yours of a prior date you have quite [mistakenly?] interpreted mine. I was not in f[avor of speak]ing at Topeka, not being aware [they felt that Luc]y and myself were expected to spea[k during the] last evening. [24] Gov Rob[inson]. came to me dur[ing the ev]ening with a request that I would sp[eak the ne]xt evening, saying Lucy Stone will only con[sent to] speak on condition that you occupy the g[re]ater part of the time (or words to that effect). I reluctantly consented; as I told him I did not feel prepared to do myself or the subject justice, but for the sake of those who would like to have Lucy Stone stay over, I consented.
The Presiding, Elder -- Fisher -- took occasion to denounce Wom[an's]. Suf[frage]. in a sermon here two weeks ago, much to the ann[oya]nce of the resident minister, who is outspoken for us. [25] [On the ? co]mpensation point -- I have not had money in [excess to pay?] expenses where my pony could not [take me. It cos]t me $10 going to [the] Con[ventio]n at Topeka, and [we did not have time?] to get in [the] crops; & the grasshoppers pro[ceeded to eat the la]st half of them. [26] I have been speaking [. . .] in our Wom[an's]. Rights Treas[urer]. sent for the [funds from] the Nat[ional]. W[oman's]. R[ights]. Ass[ociation]. three years ago -- $50. [I received] $20 & the bal[ance]. waits my order. With this I [shall pay] ex[penses]. to & over Doniphan Co[unty]. which I have engaged to commence to canvass Tues[day]. the 25th. [27] Martin, Cor[responding]. Sec[retary]. of the Don[iphan]. Co[unty], Ass[ociatio]n., [28] wrote that "Wood informed them that I would go there ["] and they were "expected to p[ay] local expenses only." I accepted the proffer [as coming] from you, believing it all right. This will [leave me go]ing, as you propose, to Topeka [on] July 5th [. . .] (prior to the Topeka Con[ventio]n) to labor pr[ior to the conven]tion time, with only occasional intervals [during the next?] weeks. [29] But under the new arrangeme[nts I have] engaged a three months' school to [. . .], and now I am obliged to put off ste[ady lectur]ing, out of the Co[unty]., till the 2d week in August, [and] not entertain Prof. [John W.] Horner, [30] as I will be having my house moved (by my carpenter son) soon as the crops are out of the way &c.
Your "record" and mine, previous to our meeting in Kan[sas]. is unknown to either! You have my entire good will in the matter -- I only felt you could not be a woman to feel all I have &c. If I had been other than too ill I intended to have spent the time in Topeka during the Leg[islativ]e session. I was unable to [wri]te: I wrote to Martin in order to enlist him in the House [and to request?] that he should show by letter to the friends [who had written?] to me, & I said to my daughter "no, nee[d to worry about Wo]od, he will work any way; but a direct [appeal to influ]ence M[artin]. to co-operate." I had from the first, f[elt . . .] ["] the Amend[men]t or a Con[stitutiona]l Convention would be [necessary in order?] to let others work" -- friend W[ood]. you wrong me. I s[poke ". . .]" of the work -- giving that away did I not. [Throughout] all the pleasant month of May, and no prospect of [rest bein]g given me till autumn yet knowing myself, & with your assent, that there was work for many lecturers. Now don't talk of my fearing others will work, or I "not get all the honor." Having labored years when it was a reproach [to be a] Wom[an']s. R[ight]s. advocate, I may covet my share [of the ho]nor of success without a blush; and wou[ld be less t]han human could I be indifferent [. . .] and a hypocrite to affect [. . .].
You are right [about the adva]ntages of system & that is the be[st way to be certa]in. I did not intend to interfere with [your plans about?] an Agency; & after I had written it, [I wanted] to erase; but then I thought you wou[ld]. [It] was a sort of humble Ruth gleaning, n[o]t designed to trench on more important lines.
Wyandotte Co[unty] is sparsely settled, or rather settled by small farmers -- School houses & neighborhoods are to be appealed to in private houses, or school houses, where they have them. The information & appointments could be arranged with Dr. [Joseph P.] Root, [31] wh[o] knows better than I the names of neighborhoods & [people]. I talked with him about the needs &c. I had [. . .] my pony & going to every house in Q[uindaro]. & Wy[andot]t[e]. [I attempted?] to get names & gather audiences. But [you need to do?] something of this sort as I have done, [. . .] and as many names to the petitions you se[nt . . .] in the Co[unty]. I have a fine start of leading [citizens]. I would not like to engage to speak m[ore than on]ce a day. I have done more formerly, where [my ti]me was spent in travelling from one app[ointmen]t to another. [32] "Print my letter." I ended with that reference to the [Kansas State] Journal [33] in jest, as a nice treat to him to find S. N. W. & C. I. H. N. at a difference. No, I have a pride in unity of action, in all good causes, and while no petty differences ever cause me to turn the cold shoulder on any co-worker, so none ever lessen my friendly feeling.
I will write again soon about the Counties.
Yours Truly
C. I. H. NICHOLS
[TO SAMUEL N. WOOD] [34]
QUINDARO, [KANSAS]
June 21st, [18]67
Friend Wood
I posted an answer yesterday to yours of the 6th, changed the address from Topeka to Cottonwood [Falls] at the P[ost]. O[ffice]. on perusal of yours of later date, which I found there. I have effected home arrangements by which I can go to Topeka [on] Monday, July 8th and fill the programme you propose. [35] But I cannot accomplish my Doniphan Co[unty]. canvass to get to Topeka at an earlier date.
I write in great haste --
Truly Yours &c,
C. I. H. NICHOLS
LUCY STONE (1818-1893), one of the more noted and radical feminists, journeyed to Kansas with her husband, Henry B. Blackwell, in April, 1867, to help launch the impartial-suffrage campaign. Those publicly advocating woman's suffrage often underwent severe censure, as in a Junction Citian's referral to Dr. Blackwell as Lucy Stone's "poodle." But the editor of the Junction City Union (April 27, 1867), at least gave Lucy this slight -- though grudging -- approval: ". . . her appearance disappointed many. Instead of bloomers and a stove-pipe hat, all witnessed a plain, modestly dressed woman -- without one of those lice-breeding chignons tacked on to the back of her head -- her style indicating more sense than the generality of women done up in milliner shops. . . ."
SUSAN B. ANTHONY (1820-1906), the most prominent national leader of the feminist crusade, visited Kansas in 1867 to help organize the canvass for woman's suffrage.
SAMUEL N. WOOD (1825-1891), radical Kansas newspaperman and politician, championed woman's suffrage and launched the Kansas Impartial Suffrage Association in 1867.
ELIZABETH CADY STANTON (1815-1902), one of the pioneer leaders in the woman's rights movement, traveled in Kansas in 1867 actively campaigning for the passage of the woman's suffrage amendment.
OLYMPIA BROWN (1835-1926), an intellectual and philosophical leader of the feminist movement, also was in Kansas during the summer and fall of 1867 lecturing on the woman's suffrage amendment.
SAMUEL J. READER (1836-1914), a farmer living north of Topeka, sketched in his daily journal his own conception of the meaning of woman's rights (the SJR diary, v. 3, KSHS).
[TO SAMUEL N. WOOD] [36]
QUINDARO, [KANSAS]
July 18, [1867]
Friend Wood --
Rec[eive]d yours of 9th addressed [to] Grass[hoppe]r Falls via Topeka, last eve. Of [course] the appointments [of speakers] must be recalled [as . . .] parted company -- I think intends to act independently. Col. John R[itchie]. has reported ere this for himself & me of [the] Jeff[erson]. Co[unty]. work. [37] I have expended $20 fare to & from fields of labor. I can't travel on my own funds, having none to spare from home demands. It is not for me to collect or solicit funds with an officer of the State organization in company. You will see that on reflection I would prefer to stay at home till Aug. 1st. [38] Then my daughter will be out of school & can take [charge] at home. I find the work needed [. . .] work it is too -- and a generous response to appeals for equal rights &c.
I am sorry this jumble of appointment has occurred. I was detained at the Curtis House [in] Topeka till 12 o'clock Sat[urday] night -- a train had run off the track. Write me here on receipt of this & don't pub[lish]. app[ointmen]ts till arrangements are made with speakers. [39]
Truly Yours &c,
[C. I. H. NICHOLS]
[TO THE MONEKA WOMAN'S RIGHTS ASSOCIATION] [40]
QUINDARO, KANSAS
Aug. 10th, 1867p
Received of the Woman's Rights Association, Moneka, Kansas, fifty (50) dollars, for services in the cause.
C. I. H. NICHOLS
[TO THE EDITOR OF THE WYANDOTTE COMMERCIAL GAZETTE] [41]
QUINDARO, [KANSAS]
September 17, 1867
Editor Gazette: --
In your issue of Aug. 17th was a communication from Rev. E[ben]. Blachly, M. D., [42] adverse to woman's equal political and domestic rights. So long time has elapsed by reason of the illness of myself and family, that I might pass it in silence, but for the fact that I had been notified in public and in private, that such a rejoinder to my lectures here, would be put forth. Courtesy to the Doctor and justice to my cause, therefore, seem to require a recognition, at least, of his communication.
The Doctor begins with repudiating the republican doctrine that "all governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed." To cut off woman's claim, he knocks the plank from under man's right of self government. This denial of the father's creed, fixes the political status of the Doctor outside the republican party, and we choose to leave him there, and turn to other points of his communication.
The Doctor teaches in effect, that man's right to govern inheres in his physical power to enforce submission; that woman being physically weaker, was designed to be subject -- to obey. He says:
"In the government of the family, of the State, or in the distribution of public offices or callings, should men and women stand upon an equality? In the family, while we hold most emphatically to companionship, it is also most apparent that there must be a head -- some one to settle differences: and reason says, other things being equal, place it on the side of power. Woman will yield -- man will not, and woman cannot compel submission. It is therefore preposterous to place the government in the hands of the weaker sex."
"Women will yield," therefore it is right she should do the yielding; "man will not yield," therefore he should have his way; "Woman cannot compel submission," therefore she should herself do all the submitting; as she is the weaker sex physically, "it is preposterous" to allow her to participate in Government based on principles of equality and controlled by moral forces. These are substantially the Doctor's positions. He says:
"Further, in all successful governments, there must be power to enforce obedience. -- The idea of physical force as a necessary element of government, is sometimes scouted. Think, say some, of ruling by brute force, where moral suasion, where kindness should give direction to human conduct. Such seem to have forgotten that there is moral depravity in the universe. What would be the government of Jehovah, without power to avenge the breach of his laws?"
If "moral depravity" is to be remembered, as coupled with the "brute force" of the governing power, I protest against Jehovah's government -- a government of moral forces, just and pure -- being compared with human governments, in which "brute force" and "moral depravity" go hand in hand. I protest against the mention of Jehovah's government, as furnishing a parallel to a human government in which the virtuous and intelligent are subjected to the morally depraved in virtue of their physical weakness.
It is claimed that "the perpetuity of our institutions depends on the virtue and intelligence of the people." It is virtue and intelligence controlling and guiding brute force that makes a nation strong, prosperous and respected. The greater the proportion of intelligence and virtue, the more powerful the government. "Brute force," controlling and ignoring virtue and intelligence, subjecting the moral power of the nation, is the Doctor's beau ideal of a strong government. He gives "brute force" the ascendency, first, by arming it with the moral power of the ballot; second, by withholding the ballot from woman; thus subjecting more than half the moral force of the State to the control of enfranchised brute force! To strengthen his position, he makes a statement, and supposes a case utterly at variance with past experience, and in the nature of things, impossible. He says:
"What of a State, that could not bind the transgressor? One would think the late rebellion against a government second to none on earth for excellence, a rebellion, the avowed object of which was the perpetuation and extension of a system of injustice and cruelty would forever silence those who would discard power as a necessary element of government. Say you majorities will rule? Yes, if they possess the power. How long, suppose you, the Southern minority would submit to the Northern majority had they the power of successful resistance? Suppose then we place the ballot in the hands of the women. While the majority of both the men and women are on one side there is no difference in the result, nothing gained. Now change the majority. A measure is to be carried by the vote of the women. The ratio is as eight females and four males for, to two females and six males against the measure; a clear majority of four in its favor; the question is one of paramount importance, say of the right of secession, and the women prefer letting the States secede, to involving, the nation in war. But will the six men submit to the four? The four cannot compel the submission of the six, and to talk of bringing the women into the field to aid in the contest is nonsense. The measure, though voted, cannot be carried into effect for want of power. A weak government is next to a wicked one, the greatest curse of any nation. Why endanger the stability of government by placing it in the hands of those who lack power to enforce its measures."
The Doctor here cites the rebellion, its past and present animus; and then supposes a case in which the women, being enfranchised, vote in a majority against the forcible subjugation of rebels. Was it not the moral force of the North, which actually conquered the South? It was virtue and intelligence -- the united fiat of the men and women of the North that successfully battled against brute force marshalled by moral depravity. It was moral force wielding intelligence, stimulating science to the invention of those aids and substitutes of brute force, the Enfield rifle, the Parrot gun, the Monitor, &c., &c., that gave supremacy to the North, and conquered the brute force of the South, battling as it was, for "the perpetuation and extension of a system of cruelty and oppression" and directed by the mere combination of power. -- All the brute force of the North could not have conquered the South, if northern women had not come up, a unit, with their virtue, their intelligence, their patriotism, their persistent industry and their thrift to its help, against the fraud and cunning of the unscrupulous and trained seceders.
It is a slander upon women, who sent husbands, brothers and sons, with their blessing, to battle for country and the oppressed, whose intelligent co-operation and persistent industry, maintained the homes and made the nation's hospitals rich in comforts and luxuries and personal care, such as the world had never seen -- to even suppose they would be dead weights on the body politic, in case of their enfranchisement. The Doctor says "a weak government is next to a wicked one, the greatest curse of any nation? And has not "the handwriting on the wall" taught him that a germ of injustice in any government saps its strength and ensures a weak government? Justice to 3,000,000 slaves has added strength to our republic. In-justice to these millions, well nigh destroyed it -- And it yet waits for the enfranchisement of one half its adult population, to realize the strength and glory of a human government, modelled after the Divine pattern of equal justice. The Doctor asks -- "why endanger the stability of government by placing it in the hands of those who lack power to enforce its measures?" Why allow feeble and maimed and sickly men to vote? Is it certain that brute force will always be on the side of the majority in a male government? Or that it will not, as in the days of Robespierre, [43] with its moral depravity, make a terrible majority? Indeed, he might well look about him for a reserve corps of moral power, of intelligence and virtue -- to save the State from the growing power of a corrupt clique, which contrives, though in a minority, to debase and control the best interests of the people. The Doctor says:
"Again, it is said taxation and representation, burdens and privileges should be equal. Very well. Then let the women stand the draft, or stand the forfeit. If they would vote a war, then let them shoulder the gun."
This retort comes with an ill grace from a man thrice exempted from "draft" for military duty. As a clergyman he is exempt from military duty, also as a physician, on the ground that these vocations are needed at home. Again, he is past 45 years of age and is exempt on the ground that he is physically incompetent to "lie on the tented field, or without a tent; wade through marshes and swamps, expose their bodies and their brain to be mangled by the sabre, the minie ball or the shell, scale the rampart or fort, &c."
If he were a Quaker, he would be exempted on the ground of "conscientious scruples." As the Doctor is exempt from military duty, he should by his own argument, "stand the forfeit," that is, be disfranchised.
The Doctor's argument ends in a climax, neither clerical nor gallant, as follows:
"All women have not husbands, what provision for them? As to widows, let the State make all necessary provision for their comfort. As to the other, better by far that the State provide husbands rather than offices for the old maids."
As a widow, taxed to support the State and its often worse than inefficient officials, I can appreciate the heartlessness of his proposition of State provision. If he were a widower, he would undoubtedly beg to relieve the State of the labor of finding a husband for some one old maid.
The Doctor's Bible Position of Women, I leave till another week. [44]
C. I. H. NICHOLS
[TO THE EDITOR OF THE WYANDOTTE COMMERCIAL GAZETTE] [45]
[QUINDARO, KANSAS]
[September, 1867]
[Editor Gazette:]
In commencing his argument against woman's right of self-government Rev. E[bon]. Blachly says: "If we can find the will of the Creator, we step on firm ground." He then proceeds to show the will of the Creator by several quotations from Genesis and Corinthians, of which he says, "these passages indicate precedence and headship on the part of man in the state of innocence." As the Doctor relies on "indications," the reader is left to infer that the relations and position of man and woman are mere matter of inference. But the will of the Creator was officially declared, and with a preciseness and particularity of detail, which is ample assurance that nothing of "God's will" in the matter, is either omitted or overlooked. Why is the Doctor silent; why not an allusion to this official announcement of God's will unless because it is opposed to his theory of woman's subjection?
Genesis I, 26. "God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth." The above is only a declaration in detail of God's purpose to create and endow Adam, the male and female. Then follows a statement of their creation and solemn inauguration, by God himself, as sovereign rulers and proprietors of the earth. He did not leave man or woman to find out their position and relation to the earth and its fullness, or to each other, by inference or, "indication." He declares to them their official dignity as rulers, and their rights as possessors. This then is the occasion on which we should naturally expect to learn "the will of the Creator," and "step on firm ground," as the Doctor desires.
Genesis I, 27. "So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created He him; male and female created He them. -- And God blessed them: And God said to them, Be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowls of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth. And God said, behold I have given you every herb bearing seed which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree in which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed, to you it shall be for food."
This then is the officially declared will of the Creator. Nothing could be more explicit. The male Adam's superior physical power is as little considered as is the female Adam's "greater delicacy of structure," in the bestowment of authority and possessions, and the imposition of responsibilities. Yet society is contemplated in the command to "multiply and replenish the earth," and labor, in the command to subdue it. By solemn ordination of God, man and woman were designed the united head of the human family; and equally endowed as rulers and possessors, have equally the right of self-government.
The Doctor quotes Gen. 2:18, "It is not good that the man should be alone. I will make an help meet for him." I Cor. 11:9. "Neither was the man made for the woman, but the woman for the man; for this cause ought the woman to have power on her head." (The Doctor omitted the clause in italics.) -- We need not go to Paul to learn what the Creator meant by an "help meet," or fit help. God is better authority than Paul or Peter. He created Eve an help meet for Adam, by endowing her to bear an equal share in the responsibilities of their joint sovereignty, Adam had no work or contemplated responsibility committed to him separately from Eve. He was not competent to fill the position alone: God said so, and it has been proven from his eating of the forbidden fruit till now. Why did Adam transgress since he was not deceived? Simply because he couldn't stand by the good and right alone. Eve being deceived by a promised good ate; she had "power on her head" and he with eyes wide open sinned with her; he forsook God and clove to his wife. Again the Doctor quotes from Paul's epistle to Timothy[:]
"'I Tim. 2:11, 12. Let the woman learn in silence with all subjection. But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence. For Adam was first formed, then Eve; and Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression. The Apostle here not only decides where authority lies, but gives two reasons for that decision; first the prior creation of man; second, that the woman was deceived by the tempter, while Adam was not deceived."
Suppose the Apostle does decide, that, authority lies with the man by reason of his prior creation. God who made both, and knew which was first formed, passed by this "reason" and made them co-equals in authority. As for the second reason for giving, Adam sovereignty over Eve, -- that he sinned wilfully -- any man of common sense would decide it a very bad precedent, to give a wilful criminal authority over his deceived accomplice, on the ground that he knew better than she the enormity of the transgression. The Doctor is at fault in his inferences. -- Again he quotes from [Peter:]
"'I Pet[er]. 3:1, 2, Likewise ye wives, be in subjection to your own husbands, that if any obey not the word, they may also without the word be won by the conversation of the wives, while they behold your chaste conversation, coupled with fear.'"
The Dr. adds: --
"Peter here gives as a reason for the subjection of the wife, that her chaste conversation, or conduct, coupled with fear, might be the means of winning the husband to Christ, an endless good flowing from a short self denial."
The complacency with which the Doctor contemplates "the short self denial," in other words the martyrdom of a christian woman to an unbelieving, infidel husband, would be touching, were it not that he broadens the marital skirts of these unbelieving husbands to cover converted men, deacons and clergymen, with the mantle of authority over their wives, even sharing said authority with bachelors, in the Good of the State. The Doctor quotes [:]
"I Cor. 14:34, Let your women keep silence in the Churches, for it is not permitted unto them to speak, but they are commanded to be under obedience, as also saith the law."
And uses it as proof that God's declaration to Eve (Gen. 3:16) "thy desire shall be unto thy husband and he shall rule over thee," is an "enactment," or law, and not a prediction. But Paul refers to the Jewish law or ordinance, which Dr. [Adam] Clark[e] in his commentary says, forbade women to teach or even speak in their assemblies. [46] If the declaration of God to Eve had been a command, or "enactment," as the Doctor says, deposing woman from her co-sovereignty with Adam and subjecting her henceforth to him, it would have been addressed to Adam also and with all the formality of their official ordination. -- That it was a prediction and should have been rendered by the translations, "thy desire will be unto thy husband and he will rule over thee" is evident also from God's declaration to the Serpent in which the same terms are used. God said to the Serpent, "it (the seed of the woman) shall bruise thy head and thou shalt bruise his heel." If the declaration to Eve be a command, then also is the Serpent commanded to go on bruising the race, the very crime for which God is arraigning him. Shall and will are used quite promiscuously in the Old Testament. -- But I have not space to argue this point to exhaustion. It is simply absurd to base on this declaration, even if it be a command, the subjection of widows, spinsters or married women to the bachelors and other women's husbands in the Government of the State. The declaration is limited to a class of women; it is addressed to the wife, not the woman, thy desire shall be unto thy husband and he shall rule over thee."
If Mr. [Richard B.] Taylor will have patience, I would like to close my reply in his next issue, with a general view of the policy of the Apostles, as explaining the seemingly contradictory position of woman in their teachings and their practice.
C. I. H. NICHOLS.
[TO THE EDITOR OF THE WYANDOTTE COMMERCIAL GAZETTE] [47]
[QUINDARO, KANSAS]
[October, 1867]
[Dear Gazette:]
A careful consideration of the general policy of the apostles, will give us the key to Paul's injunctions of silence and submission to women, as found in his epistles to the Churches and Timothy.
The disciples were few in number and less in influence. The principles of their religion were in direct conflict with the heathen or pagan Governments under which they lived. The Jewish Church from which they had seceded, was a bitter and vigilant enemy, had crucified the Christ and informed against and persecuted his disciples to death. Under these circumstances, it was the policy of the Apostles to submit to the laws and customs of the governments and people as they existed, so far as conformity with these was not disobedience to God. He taught avoidance of everything that would bring the principles of the Christian religion into disrepute, or invite collision calculated to hinder the spread of these principles. Hence we find him remonstrating with Jewish believers -- who urged the circumcising of converted Gentiles -- that they would bind on them (the Gentiles) a yoke which neither themselves nor their fathers were able to bear. Yet he circumcised Timothy -- whose father was a Greek -- to make him an acceptable minister to the Jews who still clung to the law.
Acts 21: we read, that Paul, having returned to Jerusalem, was gladly received by the brethren, who said to him, "thou seest brother, how many thousands of Jews there are who believe, and they are all zealous of the law; and they are informed concerning thee, that thou teachest all the Jews, who are among the Gentiles, to forsake Moses, saying that they ought not to circumcise their children, neither to walk after the customs. Do therefore, this, that we say to thee: We have four men who have a vow upon them, take them and purify thyself, and be at charges with them, that they may shave their heads, and all may know that those things of which they were informed concerning thee, are nothing; but thou thyself, also, walkest orderly, and keepest the law." Paul did as advised and tells us why he did it, I Cor. 9:19. "For though I be free from all men, yet have I made myself servant unto all, that I might gain the more. And unto the Jews I became as a Jew, that I might gain the Jews: To them that are under the law as under the law, that I might gain them. that are under the law: To them that are without law, as without law, being not without law to God, but under the law to Christ -- that I might gain them that are without law: To the weak became I as weak, that I might gain the weak. I am made all things to all men, that I might by all means, save some; and this I do for the Gospel's sake."
What the Apostle took upon himself, he enjoined upon others, "for the Gospel's sake." Having submitted to all these burdens of law and custom, without the Gospel of Christ to comfort and sustain them, the Apostle thought it a light matter to submit to them for a time, that the Gospel might overcome all obstacles and become the religion of the whole earth. I Cor. 10: -- he says, -- "Give no offense neither to the Jews nor to the Gentiles, nor to the Church of God, even as I please all men in all things, not seeking my own profit, but the profit of many, that they may be saved." In accordance with this policy, Paul enjoins on the disciples of both sexes, conformity, to existing laws and customs -- not to perpetuate them; not because they were just and humane, -- but that no conduct of theirs, in the relations they sustained to Government or individuals, should give offense, or involve them in collisions tending to prejudice the principles they professed. For on these principles the Apostle relied to undermine all tyrannies of the home, the Church and the State, and to establish love as the rule of a regenerated world.
Having taught, that in Christ "there is neither male nor female, bond nor free, Jew nor Gentile," -- that, God "is no respector of persons," -- the Apostle was fearful that the disciples, both men and women, might use the liberty "wherewith Christ had made them free," indiscreetly; as indeed from sundry reproofs in his letters. it would seem they had already done.
Rom. 13: Paul writes, "Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers, for there is no power but of God; whosoever, therefore, resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God; and they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation." Having thus defined the duty of the disciples in their relations to Government, he speaks also to the believing bondmen. I Tim. 6: -- "Let as many servants as are under the yoke, count their own masters worthy of all honor, that the name of God and his doctrine may not be blasphemed. And they that have believing masters, let them not despise them, because they are brethren, but rather do them service." I Tim. 2:11, 12, "Let the woman learn in silence, with all subjection. But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence." Here the Apostle was trimming his sails to the Jewish ordinance of which Dr. Clark[e] speaks in his commentary. The Dr. says, "women were not permitted to teach or even ask questions in their assemblies." It is no more difficult to reconcile this injunction of Paul's with his practice in licensing women as his helpers and co-laborers in the Gospel ministry, than to reconcile his teachings against the ceremonial law, with his circumcising of Timothy, or his purifying himself with the four men at Jerusalem, to conciliate the law abiding disciples. To all classes and both sexes, he taught conformity to the existing order of things, where, in his opinion, the sacrifice involved was a mere personal one and not a sacrifice of Christ's principles; for over and above all, was his command to "obey God rather than man."
While teaching that under the new dispensation "love is the fulfilling of the law," the Apostle was jealous of any exhibition to the world of dissensions and disagreements among the disciples, as tending to destroy the Church itself, in its then feeble infancy. In accordance with this view of the situation, he unites in his first epistle to the Corinthians 6:1, 4 & 7, "Dare any of you having a matter against another go to law before the unjust and not before the saints? If then, ye have judgments of things pertaining to this life, set them to judge who are least esteemed in the Church." (Query; did he mean the women by least esteemed?) "Now therefore, there is utterly a fault among you, because you go to law one with another. Why do ye not rather take wrong? Why do ye not rather suffer yourselves to be defrauded?" Here again the Apostle enjoins upon the disciples to submit to be wronged; to submit to be defrauded, rather than expose the faith they professed to reproach and contempt. That the submission enjoined was only a temporary expedient for peace, until the principle involved in the command, "Owe no man anything but to love one another," should have control of all hearts, is evident from the context. I Cor. 10:24, "Let no man seek his own but another's wealth." Even as the Apostle enjoined upon wives submission for the sake of the Gospel; and love upon husbands that they might refrain from the exercise of any authority, but the winning power of unselfish affection, so he exhorts the disciples to submit to be defrauded pecuniarily, to save the Gospel Church from scandal, but urges upon them a practise which, by preventing fraud and wrong, would save the necessity for such submission, viz. "Let no man seek his own but another's wealth."
Peter takes a similar view of the situation and commends the same policy. I Pet. 2: "Submit yourselves to every ordinance of man for the Lord's sake, * * *. For so is the will of God, that with well doing ye may put to silence the ignorance of foolish men; as free and not using your liberty for a cloak of maliciousness, but as servants of God. * * * Servants be subject to your masters, with all fear; not only to the good and gentle, but also to the forward. For this is thankworthy if a man for conscience toward God endure grief, suffering wrongfully." No license is here given to oppression, for Peter's language implies that the infliction is wrongful. For the comfort and encouragement of these bondmen, Peter cites Christ as their great example of wrongful suffering "who did no sin neither was guile found in him; who when he was reviled reviled not again; when he suffered he threatened not, but committed himself to Him that judgeth righteously, * * * by whose stripes ye were healed. For ye were as sheep going astray, but are now returning unto the Shepherd and bishop of your souls." Having thus presented to the converted bondmen Christ as an example of saving forbearance, Peter adds (3:1,) "Likewise ye wives be in subjection to your own husbands, that if any obey not the word, they also may, without the word, be won by the conversation of the wives."
Thus we see that the submission which the Apostles taught to unjust rulers, oppressive masters and domineering husbands, was a present necessity. The disciples were powerless themselves, to right the wrongs inflicted by existing laws and customs; and they were comforted and encouraged by the assurance that their forbearance would aid the spread of Gospel principles and break down the partition walls of prejudice between Jew and Gentile; abolish caste; liberalize the Government; make the slave a freeman, and woman, as "in the beginning," one in dominion and possession and responsibility with man. In a country where christian men have substituted a representative for a monarchical government, forcibly ejecting the "powers that be" regardless of the "damnation" threatened by St. Paul; have taken their worldly differences before civil tribunals, in defiance of his injunction to submit them to those least esteemed in the Church; have freed from millions of slaves, notwithstanding St. Paul enjoined on the bondmen contentment with their lot; and cheerful service to their masters, -- a country whose law makers have done all this in defiance of St. Paul, as usually interpreted, can hardly refuse to abolish the last relic of barbarous government by conferring on its women the right of self government so clearly theirs by creative right and sound political morality.
C. I. H. NICHOLS
[TO THE EDITOR OF THE VERMONT PHOENIX] [48]
WYANDOTTE, [KANSAS]
Feb. 14, 1868
Dear Phoenix: --
How nice and "well to do" you look in your new dress and amplified dimensions. As an evidence of prosperity, I congratulate you; as a promise of increased entertainment, I congratulate your readers, remembering myself among them.
What a happy man the country editor, who enters heart and soul into the business of feeding his readers with soul food, good and digestible! Just think, in these winter evenings, of the many cosy homes, hearths clean swept, fires replenished, work tables drawn up, the mothers and daughters and little boys -- perhaps fathers and big boys -- all seated to hear and discuss the contents of their home paper. As they listen to the substantial matter of the first and last pages; to the editorial summary of news; reports of progress; of lyceums and lectures; births, marriages and deaths among friends and acquaintances; or debate the merits of our newly acquired territory; rejoice or deplore, as need be, the signs of the moral and political horizon, and laugh to tears over the crupper guided race of "old whitey," -- how much they are profited, how much enjoy!
The intellect has had its due exercise in practical discussion; the social sympathies expanded as they harbored the world's great heart; home has been brightened, and all retire to their beds in the mental frame of the good woman, who after reading a chapter from a valuable book, felt "as if her soul had eaten something." And by the way, how many persons in the restlessness of unoccupied minds get night mare and indigestion in late visits to the cupboard, who if they spent the evening hours in the feast of reason and the interchange of thought, in reading and discussing practical topics, would find the food that they sought, and found not in the cupboard. The children will never forget a home with such associations, and in making homes of their own, will reproduce the social order of their childhood.
Much of the homesickness of immigrants to new states would be saved, if only the pressure of material wants left them some portion of each day to recreate the mind. How hungry we were, and how unsettled in our feelings, till cabined and fenced in, we could take the afternoon and evening hours to read our papers and re-read our treasured books. It was food that went to the hungry spot and revived the associations that bound us to the former life and to the world.
Is the east coming to us en masse? We hear of an immense immigration. Well we have provisions plenty, with the best of land and the warmest welcome. When I came to Kansas my friends said we "would have no market; no railroads in my life time. If we transported produce east, the freightage to the highways of eastern commerce would consume it; west of us was literally a wilderness." Well, there has never been a season since the commencement of the settlement of Kansas, that the demand of the immigration from the east, and the settlements on our west has not been equal to the supply. And our farmers, with as fine crops as the world ever saw, are unable to keep pace with the growing demand. Prices vary less than I supposed between this point and Brattleboro. Sugars about the same; teas 25 per cent. higher; flour from $6 to $7.25 per cwt.; corn from 50 to 60 cts.; whole hogs 8 cts.; cuts 10 to 15 cts.; beef, 10 to 15 cts.; butchers cuts; corn meal $1 per cwt.; butter 50 to 60 cts.; eggs 30 to 40 cts.; lard 15 cts.; feed bran, $1 to $1.50; apples $1.50, the finest you ever ate. Prices of other produce about the same as in your place. In my next I will tell you of land and prices, schools, churches and character of inhabitants. [49]
C. I. H. NICHOLS.
[TO THE EDITOR OF THE WYANDOTTE COMMERCIAL GAZETTE] [50]
[WYANDOTTE, KANSAS]
[March, 1868]
Dear Gazette --
As you have told your readers where I am and what I am doing, it may be in order for me to add, that though my little farm is just the size of the Rev. Henry Ward Beecher's it will take years of well applied cultivation at a heavy expense to approximate the returns of my Rev. brother's. I wonder if his taxes are in proportion as mine are out of proportion -- to income? -- Does he ever over-pay through the carelessness or incompetency of the tax officials? If he finds them in the wrong in their "fundamental" arithmetic, I wonder if they own up and refuse to rectify, and if he takes that as a finality, being a believer in "total depravity?"
Here now I have the frank admissions of the County Clerk, Mr. [Jesse J.] Keplinger, [51] and the Treasurer, Mr. [John M.] Funk, [52] that I have paid $11.00 over and above my legal tax, yet each charges upon the other, and denies that it is his fault or his business to refund. [53] When farmers generally complain that they find it difficult to meet expenses and pay their taxes, will a woman who must hire her work done at men's prices, and earn at woman's prices find it easy to pay extra taxes? If I had been enfranchised last fall I would have said nothing of this to your readers, their constituents -- but I -- no matter now. I have a wealthy lady friend in Pennsylvania, a farmer. She had employment for 16 Irishmen election week and -- they all voted her ticket. Kansas women make a note of this, and Kansas men too, for if we are not enfranchised we will be plowing, with your teams, furrows in the political circle to suit our interests. With our small means, we can't afford to "burn the candle at both ends." How many votes can be bought for $11.00?
But to change the scene, not the theme, do your readers know what the new lights of the Legislature are proposing? Assuming that the defeat of the amendments submitted last fall, was a verdict of the voters against the civil rights of women and negroes [sic], they are pressing repeals and amendments trenching on the rights we now have. It is what I have expected from our organization as a State, as characteristic of class legislation, the world over. Having been absent from the State during 1863, '64 and '65, I have only recently been made aware that Kansas is no exception. The laws enacted by our first Legislature were more favorable to women than existing statutes. Though there may have been an occasional step in advance, where general interests carried women's interests with them -- as the Temperance law of last session [54] -- each year has taken something from us, by construction of Courts, or amendments of laws.
Originally, widows were exempted from taxes on $500 worth of property. That was early repealed. [55] The widow was entitled to one-half her husband's estate (the estate accumulated by their common savings and earnings). For the half, one third has been substituted, "provided" that the widow do not elect in a certain time, to take her dowry under the first law. [56] And how many women know there is such a choice or change in the law? These class legislators are mice eating out the heart of the cheese -- the rind may for a time hide the mischief.
Now they are proposing to nullify the woman's voice in the liquor traffic, by substituting electors for citizens in the bill proposed. [57] They also propose to submit to the "people," an amendment to the Constitution, limiting the homestead exemption to $1000, [$]2000 or much less than the existing law covers. [58] The only hope of woman against this movement, lies in the fact that men are equally interested. The personal property holders, as a class, will vote to stint us in our homes, whenever the question is submitted. But as I am "within speaking distance," I had better speak often, than long. [59]
C. I. H. N.
[TO RICHARD B. TAYLOR] [60]
WYANDOTTE, [KANSAS]
March 18th, 1868
Mr. Taylor: --
I have not received my last Gazette, but understand that Mr. [Jesse J.] Keplinger has made an explanation substantially the same as in his letter to me some months since. [61] As he simply misapprehends the facts, I will state them so clearly that he cannot fail to see who is responsible for my overpaid tax, and who ought to refund.
And here let me say, I have none but friendly sentiments to Mr. Keplinger. His honor and honesty I have never questioned, his gentlemanly courtesy, I am most happy to acknowledge. I know how the mistake occurred, but that knowledge is not worth to me one penny of the $11.00 illegally collected.
Mr. [Rynear] Morgan's and my land were owned in common by two families as heirs, and the heirs divided the tract by deeds into two parts. [62] Mr. M's was purchased of one party. I subsequently bought the other half. I went to the Commissioners during their summer session, and finding that Mr. M's land and mine had been assessed as one tract, I requested them to divide the assessment, so that I might pay mine and Mr. M. his, and neither's land be held for non-payment of the other's taxes. I thought it their business to do this, and not, as they decided, for Mr. M. and myself to "settle the matter between us." I still think it was their business, with my recorded deed and the division deed of the heirs, within ten feet of the table where they sat, and a most gentlemanly clerk to find it for them.
When tax-paying time came, I was ill and paid through an intelligent neighbor, who took my deed with instructions to get a receipt defining the boundaries of the land on which I paid the taxes. The following is an exact copy of the receipt:
TREASURERS OFFICE, WYANDOTTE CO., KAN.
January 9th, 1867.
Received of C. I. H. Nichols the sum of _____ in full for County, State and Township taxes, due on the following described property for the year A. D. 1866. Commencing at N. E. corner of Sec. 5, T. 11, R. 25, thence west 113½ poles, south 31 poles, east 113½ poles, north 7 poles, east 80 poles, north 24 poles -- 33 89-100 acres.
J. M. FUNK, Treasurer.
Twelve acres of this tract (on the east side of the section line which runs through it), lies within Wyandotte City limits, and is subject to a city tax. This tax I paid subsequently, stating to the Treasurer that I had paid all the taxes on my whole tract except the city tax on this 12 acres; and I gave him my receipt as above in proof. He then gave me the amount of my unpaid tax on the 12 acres, which I paid and took my receipt. On examination I told him he had taken the State, County and Township taxes a second time. He could not see it, and I left my receipts with Mr. Keplinger, who after examining the books wrote me that I had overpaid, but must get it back from Mr. Morgan. Now any one can see by comparing the description of the land paid on in the two receipts, that the 33 89-100 acres covers the 12 acres. The last receipt reads as follows:
Received of C. I. H. Nichols the sum of _____ in full for County, State and Township taxes due on the following described property for the year A. D. 1866, Commencing at the N. W. corner of N. W. fractional quarter of Sec. 4, T. 11, R. 25, thence east 80 poles, south 24 poles, west 80 poles,, north 24 poles to beginning -- 12 acres.
Now what legal claim have I on Mr. M. when my receipt limits the taxes paid to my own land? He paid too little on his, says Mr. K., but I am not a tax official to collect of him. The Treasurer is the person, I take it, who took too much of me and too little of him, to refund to me and get it of him if he can. The Treasurer understands the case if Mr. K. does not. If mine were the only case of the kind in the country I would the more regret the space in your columns. But I hope to call attention to the importance of consulting the Records of Deeds in assessing lands in our county.
C. I. H. NICHOLS.
P. S. I have read Mr. K.'s communication. I paid the tax in question about the 1st of May and left my receipts with him the same day. In August, about the 24th, he inclosed them to me with his explanation and an apology that he "had laid the papers aside at the time and forgotten the matter, &c." Mr. M.'s deed included my land in its boundaries, being "an undivided share." I suppose the partition deed of the heirs was not taken into account when his deed was taken. I purchased in the summer of '62. Mr. [James A.] Cruise made the deed. [63.]
[TO SUSAN B. ANTHONY] [64]
WYANDOTTE, KANSAS
April 14, 1868
[Dear Susan:]
One object in this communication is to correct your figures. My over-paid tax was eleven dollars. [65] A tax of seventy dollars, including the eleven, was quite enough for a thirty-four acre farmer, though not so much as to suggest a wealthy proprietor, or excessive taxation in Kansas.
You speak of my effort in the last Constitutional Convention of Kansas "to keep out of the Constitution the white male qualification." I also "tried" and succeeded in securing what no other state had given -- equal rights in children and the conduct of schools. I believed then, as I do now, that our right to vote in school matters was an entering wedge to existing prejudices which would hasten our political enfranchisement. I went to that Convention as the accredited delegate of "The Kansas Woman's Rights Association," and by a vote of the Convention was heard in behalf of the petitioners for "Equal Rights." I attended all its sessions, and labored "in season and out of season" -- if the latter were possible -- for what I believed to be the highest wisdom and best expediency for the state. And when I saw men in the late canvass, laboring in the front rank for woman's enfranchisement as the best hope of the state -- who, as members or lobbyists in that convention clung to the male qualification as a saving clause -- I thought they might realize the folly, the base expediency they were guilty of in sowing those white male dragon's teeth which have sprung up to defeat and plague them in their efforts for the moral and political purgation of the state.
In a caucus of the republican members of that Convention -- as reported to me at the time, semi-officially -- there was a majority in favor of women's enfranchisement, large enough to carry the point in Convention. But the difficulty Kansas had met in getting into the Union, and the probable handle the democracy would make of so radical an innovation, to defeat its adoption by the popular vote, influenced a majority to retain the "white male" qualification, "Let Kansas once get into the Union, Mrs. Nichols," said one of the gentlemen reporting, "and her Legislature will do for you what we dare not. We have a majority for securing equal rights in property, children and the conduct of schools, and we will make it easy as possible to amend the franchise law. Will this satisfy you?" Such in substance was the communicated decision of that republican conference touching the rights of Kansas women under the pending Constitution.
There were a few radicals in that convention who rejected a policy disfranchising any class, and fought it bravely on the floor of the Convention. It was no light labor to convince those who were afraid of popular defeat, that a Constitutional guarantee of our civil rights was our due. They said "the Legislature will secure you these rights. I insisted that without Constitutional provision or the ballot, legislative action was of the nature of an annual lease; our rights might come and go as each succeeding Legislature willed. Constitutions were less frequently and not covertly amended, giving time for practical results to convince reason against prejudice." I felt that the securing of our civil rights by Constitutional provisions, was an advantage gained. That it was so, is proven by the facts that a subsequent Legislature reduced the widow's dower from one-half, as provided by the first Legislature, to one-third, her right in the estate in common not being specified in the Constitution. [66]
Legislative action has also deprived the mother, though a widow, of any share in a deceased child's estate; the father has the whole; if there is no father living, the brothers and sisters heir the estate of the brother or sister dying intestate and without heirs. [67] The Legislature of '67 gave woman a voice in the licensing of the liquor traffic, excepting one city of the first and one of the second class. The Legislature of '68 so amended that law that in all our cities of the first and second class the city governments, elected by "white males," are invested with the license power. [68] Our next Legislature cannot consistently refuse to extend an equal right (?) to the rural districts, unless they substitute a temperance law of universal application, which cannot be done till the women of the state vote for legislators.
With some exceptions, the laws of the last Legislature have not been published, but from what I gather of the character of that Legislature, I am apprehensive that the rights of Kansas women have suffered by its "codifying" work. Only our clearly defined Constitutional rights, as recognized by the first Legislature, were left to us by the Legislatures preceding that of '68. [69]
It was my inference at the time, and assented to by eminent members of the Convention, that the wording of the provision, "The Legislature, in providing for the formation and equalization of schools, shall make no distinction between the rights of males and females" -- gave the women of Kansas a Constitutional right to vote for all state and county officials authorized to act in the formation or regulation of schools. And, if I am not much mistaken, there are women in Kansas who will demand the right, and if denied, appeal to the Courts. And now, dear S[usan]., with the assurance that whenever my breadwinning occupation will allow, it will give me pleasure to act upon your invitation to contribute to "The Revolution," I remain,
Yours for the right,
C. I. H. NICHOLS.
[TO THE EDITOR OF THE WYANDOTTE COMMERCIAL GAZETTE] [70]
WYANDOTTE, [KANSAS]
July 26th, [1868]
Dear Gazette: --
Months have passed since I told you of the potatos and oats up, and corn planted &c. Now the potatos are ripe and being eaten; the second planting of sweet corn ditto. Melons, tomatos and onions in their prime and field corn from 12 to 13 feet in the stalk. Early crops in this locality have not suffered, as yet, from drouth. The extreme hot weather had rendered frequent showers a necessity, and a little rain, now that the heat has abated, would increase the growing crops materially. Oats are harvested and heavy. Wheat is splendid. No poor bread this year, sisters. The flour must be tip top So if poor bread appears on our tables it will be the fault of the cooks -- unless the menfolks neglect to furnish good wood to bake with.
With a lady friend from old Penn[sylvania], I took a trip last week to Manhattan. At Lawrence a special car was attached for Gen[era]'ls Grant, Sherman and Sheridan. [71] Wherever it was known that Grant was on board, a vociferous calling out and cheering was the result. The Gen. stepped out upon the car platform at two or three places and bowed acknowledgements to the crowd. At Manhattan it was "Grant, Grant," and the Gen. came to the platform, and there was left to be stared at like an elephant. [72] If the men who called him out had not the courage or the manners, I thought the women should welcome him, and with my friend I made my way to him. At some little distance I caught his eye; he evidently understood my movements and stepped forward to meet me. I said, "Gen., as one of the mothers of Kansas I would bid you welcome. If we could vote, we would vote for Grant and [Schuyler] Colfax, [73] and when we are enfranchised we will vote for just such men." With a cordial hand-shake and smile, as if he had forgotten his masculine surroundings, he replied "You can electioneer for us." "Aye, aye, that we can." The "ice being broken," the men rushed pell mell for a hand-shake. Two ladies who followed near us, got a grip -- the cars had started and the timid starers were left with out stretched hands, looking after the hero, to vote for him next November. We women "electioneer" for him. Said our friend, Prof. M[udge]., [74] "you were acquainted with him at Washington? No? I thought from the cordialty of his manner and the way his face lighted up, that you had met before." --
That was the response to motherly intervention. He evidently was enduring a sort of martyrdom, standing to be stared at. We will not soon forget the involuntary outlook of that noble, unhackneyed soul of an honest man. Others remarked that he was much better looking when he spoke and his face lighted up with a smile, than his pictures. --
The picture of him in Mrs. [Harriet Beecher] Stowe's new book is truthful. [75] I have seen no other that is so good. We had a delightful visit at Manhattan at the Pres't Joseph Denison's, [76] Professors [Isaac T.] Goodnow [77] and [Benjamin F.] Mudge's homes. And they are homes indeed, where besides all bodily comforts, we found "the feast of reason and the flow of soul." Prof. Mudge took us over the college and we spent half an hour in his lecture room amid the curious things of the earth, earthy. Prof M., is an enthusiast in Geology and the many and rare specimens he has collected speak volumes for his industry and success in finding out the hidden things of his science. Kansas soil has furnished him a splendid array of fossils &c. &c. He had just returned from a trip up the Republican [river] and spoke enthusiastically of the Salt region and other matters of interest to our State. It was vacation, but we were pleased to find that the advantages of the college and its advanced classes are greater than claimed for it. [78] Indeed the faculty and Directors are not of the gassing order. They might boast of their institution, so young yet so mature.
The crops above St. Mary's [79] are not as heavy as on this side. Wyandotte Co[unty]. is the best to appearance, suffering less from hot weather and drouth; and judging from the height of the corn and size of wheat and oats (in the sheaf) the soil is richer and stronger. From above Topeka we noted the like difference. But my letter is getting long.
Yours Truly,
C. I. H. NICHOLS.
[TO THE EDITOR OF THE WYANDOTTE COMMERCIAL GAZETTE] [80]
WYANDOTTE, [KANSAS]
Aug. 17th, 1868
Dear Gazette:
It is not long since I wrote you, but then I broke off with much unsaid, and more has accumulated that will not keep for future use. And first, I did not tell you that in my stay at Manhattan I had a nice visit at your old townsman's, Judge [William] McKay's; [81] found them well and pleasantly located -- the judge nursing fine young fruit trees and grape vines, that will in a few years make his home a beauty spot and his store-rooms run over with luxuries. It is hard to be pulled up by the roots and transplanted, after one has formed social relations with kindred spirits, and made a valiant fight with unsubdued nature for a home that begins to be a home in its best sense. So with our friends the McKays. The Wyandotte home is the first love, and the old familiar friends and scenery looked back to with regret. We who have been pulled up and, with rootlets torn and limbs barked and broken, set out again to recover the old growth and vigor, know how to sympathize with like sufferers. I sometimes query if life is long enough, or art sufficiently cunning, to restore with new growths the old power of full and joyous sustenance from our new surroundings and stanch the wounds that sap the life-sweets of our later homes? Let is have faith; 'tis our strong ally in the struggle, and if we lose it we lose all.
The rains, frequent and gentle, of the past ten days, have happily renovated the earth and filled the hearts of its dwellers hereabout, with gladness. The wheat and oats are being threshed, and doubtless, your readers would like to know the results. If my figures are not accurate, the parties interested will, I think, be kind enough to correct the same. On the Isaiah Walker [82] farm (owned by Mr. Ball, [83] of Fremont, Ohio), two fields of wheat were raised; one of 4¾ acres, yielded 110 bushels; the other of 13 acres, I am told averaged 42 bushels. Mrs. Orton, [84] from 10 acres had 245 bushels. Mr. Buttrick [85] had 363 bushels wheat it is said, from some 28 acres: and from 5 acres, 209 bushels oats. Our own grain and that of our near neighbors is not yet thrashed.
Saturday, the 15th, I attended the annual "Green Corn Festival" [86] of the Wyandotts, in the grove near Widow Solomon's. [87] The gathering was very large and respectable, and had a peculiar interest as the last ever to be held in this vicinity, so we were told by the speakers. The members of the tribe resident in the vicinity, with some exceptions, expect to remove to the Indian Territory before another season. Delegations from the Delawares and Shawnees were present and participated in the festivities. Speeches were made in the native tongue by Hon. Wm. Walker, [88] John Gray Eyes, [89] Chief Blue-Jacket, [90] of the Shawnees, and a response in behalf of the white citizens present, by lawyer [John B.] Scroggs [91] of your city. Gov. Walker anglicised his address, for which I think every intelligent, white person present owed him hearty thanks -- he has mine for valuable facts of history bearing upon the moral status of the white as well as the red men of our continent, and if I did not hope the substance of his address would be published, as it should be, by solicitation of those present -- I would try and give your readers a brief synopsis of the same. [92] He gave a history of their early conflicts with persecuting neighboring tribes in the early days in Canada, when they were known as Hurons; of their reception of Christianity and its civil life, their final separation from the Hurons under the appellation of Wyandotts, removal to Michigan, &c. [93]
After the speaking and ceremony of giving Wyandotte names, came the eating. Big iron kettles of succotash were free to all who came provided with dishes and spoons. -- Baskets of bread and meat sliced, were carried around, and such as understood the customs of the day, had sticks with two prongs, on one of which they took the meat, on the other the bread, which was passed to them on sharp pointed sticks. There were fried cakes also, and melons in abundance. There was a home like, every day simplicity in eatables, dress and entire arrangement, of this woodland festival, which to my mind contrasted comfortably with the showy and unsubstantial so often predominant in our public picnics, and sometimes suggestive of lean tables at home. The fete closed with national dances. The music and the dancing were in harmony, but singularly monotonous, as much so as a drum sitting on the ground and beaten with one stick, and covered dish of shot constantly shaken, as an accompaniment -- could make them. The men danced excitedly in a circle around the musicians, with faces sometimes towards the audience and sometimes to the centre of the circle. -- With their bodies prone from their hips, their eyes fixed upon the ground, making short, quick, shakey, sidewise steps, their movements were singularly ungraceful. As they changed front they broke out in short, sharp cries. Only old women danced -- four or five of them. They moved in a circle outside the men, erect, calm, dignified and self possessed, with slightly undulating, forward steps, bowed heads, and grave, pensive faces, that I will not soon forget. There seemed a worship of sad memories and premonitions of "passing away" welling up and setting them apart for the time, from present surroundings. In conclusion, I will add, that good order seemed native to the occasion, and very little of the smoking, which made the celebration of the "Fourth" in your beautiful grove an endurance, was indulged in. [94]
C. I. H. NICHOLS.
[TO THE EDITOR OF THE WYANDOTTE COMMERCIAL GAZETTE] [95]
WYANDOTTE, [KANSAS]
Sept. 7, '68
Dear Gazette: --
I would not have left you to regret the neglect of your Quindaro correspondents, but for the expectation that "Vag" and "Ad Interim" [96] would fill all your spare room with reports of the grand rally of the republicans of Quindaro, [97] and the practical addresses of Messrs. [Joseph P.] Root and [Stephen A.] Cobb, [98] on the occasion. I presumed they would get in reports before me, so I refrained, lest you might cry "too much bush," as the Indian did when a flaw of wind struck his leafy sail and upset his canoe. The evening of the 2d was very fine, and having refreshed myself -- after an arduous campaign in the peach line -- with a cup of Buesche's delicious coffee, (Buesche has the best coffee I have found in Kansas, and equal to any I ever used anywhere,) I took a horseback ride to the new school house. [Lt.] Gov. Root led with a good matter-of-fact talk on national issues; all must have assented to the justice of his conclusions. [99] Mayor Cobb followed with a telling expose of our local policy, and I inwardly prayed that his earnest appeal might result in the abatement of existing abuses. [100] I hope the gentlemen may come again, and I think the audience they had, both for numbers and respectability, will be sufficient encouragement.
Now, Mr. Editor, I wish to call attention to the woman question. By the terms of the Constitution, we have a right to vote in the "formation and regulation of schools."
"The Legislature, in providing for the formation and regulation of schools, shall make no distinction between the rights of males and females." -- Constitution of Kansas, Article 2, Section 23.
When the section was before the Convention, leading members with whom I conferred, assented to my conclusion that we could vote for all officials, who by their office form or regulate schools. I think the time has fully come to use this right, and I propose that the women of the State present themselves on general election day at the polls, and cast their votes for State and County Superintendents of Schools. There are ladies in Quindaro and Wyandotte who will, I doubt not, respond to such a call. [101] I am thinking to cast my vote, and doubt not the gallantry, if not the sense of justice, of the "judges of the election" will accept it with a pleasant nod of human recognition. Mr. Editor, please move this matter with the press of the State.
C. I. H. NICHOLS.
[TO THE EDITOR OF THE VERMONT PHOENIX] [102]
WYANDOTTE, KA.
Sept. 7th, 1868.
Dear Phoenix: --
It is peach harvest, and such a paring and canning and eating of the luscious fruit, dear old Vermont never experienced, and, alas! never can. Budded trees, which have been very "shy bearers" in previous years, have been over-laden this year, and being early, their fruit brought in our market from $3 to $4 per bushel, and many bushels were transported to other localities and sold as high as $5 and $6. Apples, so plenty last year, are scarce this. One reason for this is in the sorts grown. The Juneatings, which are a large proportion of every orchard in this region, bear full only alternate years. The Rumbo, next in order, is an abundant bearer, keeps well till January, and is a delicious apple. The Juneating is the best keeper, being prime till May. Trees of these sorts in our neighbor's orchard bore last year as many as 28 bushels to the tree, and this is not uncommon in orchards set 15 to 20 years ago. We have other sorts though not the variety to be found in old States. The Red Astrachan, Wine Sap, Pippins, Bellefleur and Greenings; the latter have not had a fair trial in this soil and climate, and some fruit-growers are shy of them. We have all a few trees of this kind, who have set orchards recently.
Wyandotte county is the fruit region of Kansas. The kinds of fruit grown here and east are, with the exception of currants, decidedly improved in size and flavor by the transfer west. Currants are only more difficult of growth, and require the protection of shade among the orchard trees or the north side of a fence or wall.
We are having an immense immigration. Capital comes and buys our partially subdued acres, to build nice homes, and beautify as well as cultivate for bread. A place of 41 acres, seen from my window where I sit, was sold last week by its southern owner to an eastern family for $2800. It was purchased two years ago at $58 per acre. Its present owner was obliged to sell. In 1862 our lands, in the Wyandotte city, say within 3 miles, were sold at from $4 to $10 per acre. The same lands have changed hands or been refused at from $50 to $75 per acre, within the past year. I bought in 1862 at $10; since then my neighbors have bought in and around me at from $40 to $75 per acre.
This is a remarkably well watered region. Fine cold springs of never-failing capacity gush out from the bottoms and sides of ravines, securing plenty of stock water. Fine rock for building purposes crops out in the sides of our ravines, and is becoming valuable as a merchantable commodity. It is healthy. The ague, which more or less afflicts the pioneer husbandman, is getting rare, and is very manageable. The present season is remarkably healthy, though we have had the longest "spell" and the hottest, experienced by our "oldest inhabitant." Crops have suffered on the uplands from the hot, dry weather. The heat created a demand for more moisture than usual, otherwise I think the amount of rain we lacked would have been less needed. Oats, wheat, barley and rye were harvested before the dry time, and are splendid in quality and quantity. From 22 to 42 bushels of wheat to the acre were produced on four farms in our school district. These were no exceptions to the general rule in this county, but I have not the exact figures in others, and much remains to be threshed. Oats have yielded heavily -- from 40 bushels upward. Rye, though little was sown, is very fine.
Corn will be a light average crop for which the farmers themselves are much in fault. Some of them have taken the lesson to heart, and will no longer crowd their rows. If they had planted 4 feet apart one way and 4½ the other, and plowed 2 inches deeper, they would have had an average crop in spite of dry weather. The stalks had attained a height of from 10 to 14 feet, and were just beginning to tassel when the dry term set it. This was the early planting and has made little less than an average crop where an unusual one was promised. The later planting is very light, but fine fodder. Early potatoes were nearly a failure, but later ones are promising well. Beans are in profusion -- a second crop; the early crop having been gathered before and during the dry term. All late crops are flourishing.
And what of the political campaign? Parties wax warm, but the strife is among the Republicans. As yet the Democrats are very quiet. The Republicans have so many good men who want office -- fewer whom office wants -- that the people are bewildered. After candidates are nominated this excitement will subside. [103] The contest for Governor will, I think, result in the nomination and election of Geo. A. Crawford, [104] -- a good man. Sidney Clark [105] has shown himself a "whiffler," and I think Gov. [Samuel J.] Crawford [106] or S[olon]. O. Thacher [107] will be elected to his place in Congress. No better men morally, as well as intellectually, could be presented for the position. As a personal friend and a member of our Constitutional Convention, I have a preference for judge, Thacher. But Gov. Crawford has done well for the State. If Gov. [Charles] Robinson were a candidate he would be my first choice. He deserves more as having been more to our young State, and in capability is equal to any.
Much has transpired to make me tardy in my correspondence during the last few months. The gentleman from your green hills who came here and won and took away to his mountain eyrie, one dearer, sweeter, better self -- our only daughter -- has to answer for my neglect. [108] You will forgive him, I know.
Truly,
C. I. H. NICHOLS.
[TO THE EDITOR OF THE VERMONT PHOENIX] [109]
WYANDOTTE, KA.
Sept. 20, 1868.
Dear Phoenix: --
Very soon your State Legislature will be convened to make and amend laws, and provide generally for the interests and government of the people. As a daughter of Vermont I glory in the splendid majority she has given to the party of freedom as against Southern rebels and their allies. In national politics she heads the column of freedom; I regret she is behind younger States in the practical application of equality of rights to her own people. From the reported "acts" of your Legislatures, it would seem that very little progress has been made during the past 12 years in this direction. The black man being already a voter, the question of colored suffrage has not stirred the pool of Vermont politics. Railroads and their monopolies, and other local interests -- petty compared with the great question of equal rights for all -- have kept up a respectable tempest in the teapot. And when there arose no question of "male" rights to legislate upon, the "small birds" and the "little fishes" have come in for protection. And here I am happy to see there is progress. From protecting, the State has advanced, through appropriations and commissioners, to breeding fish for the consumption of the people. There is hope, then, that your worthy legislators will have stomachs for the question of woman's enfranchisement. Having noted the sparrows to protect them in the enjoyment of their natural rights, will they not progress to the protection of women and children in their natural and inherent rights?
While the party of freedom was absorbed in efforts to protect the government against the assaults of an armed rebellion, the women of the free States gave themselves to the demands of camps and hospitals, and generously forebore to press their claims. [110] Now that the government is firmer and more confident from its successful resistance of rebellion, it is but fit that the women of the State should be as well considered in legislative deliberations as birds and fishes. Their enfranchisement will not involve the expense of commissions and appropriations. Your Legislature, which is invested by the Constitution with power to organize and regulate schools, corporations, &c., can make her a voter in all these. It can so amend its own laws as to destroy existing legal distinctions between the sexes, in property, corporation, municipal and school district rights, and submit the question of enfranchisement to the voters of the State. I think the Legislature has the power to determine the qualifications of voters in town matters; that in organizing under the Constitution it did so disfranchise its paupers, they being allowed to vote only the State and National ticket, (an absurdity, a wrong, by the way.)
If I am rightly informed, your Legislature has been annually petitioned in behalf of equal rights for the female half of the community. That honorable body, in face of recent national experiences, should not need further reminder of the power of the ballot in securing the enjoyment of natural and inherent rights, or that the right of petition is a most pitiful and mocking substitute.
Our fathers commenced their governmental career declaring that "taxation without representation is tyranny," that all "governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed;" but with singular inconsistency, almost their first act ignored the political existence of one-half the people -- the women. And as if to prove that usurped powers necessarily result in injustice to the so governed, they, in their representative capacity, enacted laws taxing the single and legally executing the married, until, in judicial parlance, the married woman was "dead in law," or, as if hung in effigy, her "legal existence" was "suspended." In defiance of their declaration that "all men are endowed by their creator with certain natural, inherent and inalienable rights," they did alienate from the mothers of humanity, rights declared to be natural to and inherent in humanity itself. More considerate indeed, as to forms, than the highwayman, who kills that he may rob the unresisting dead, they executed the married women legally, administered upon their estates and decreed the distribution of their effects in legislative halls. This done, they laid Herod hands upon the natural relations existing between mother and child, daughter and parent. Recklessly sundering what God hath joined, they gave the entire control of the babes to the fathers, drunken or sober, thus making married women legally childless. Every community of your State has had its Rachels mourning for their children, and every Probate District its infirm and impoverished fathers and mothers whose alienated claim upon the married daughters, half starved or sent them to the poor-house for bread and shelter.
But our law-makers did not stop here in "representing" and "protecting" women, they went on practically illustrating the tyranny and injustice of taxation without representation, and to secure the wife's services to the husband beyond a peradventure, they decreed her person to his custody. And when she flies from his brutality or neglect, to earn her bread in more genial conditions, he can legally collect her wages, take from her her clothing (his in law) and force her thence, and even bring action for damages against the friends who "harbor" her. True, men are generally better than such laws indicate, and when these things are done -- when husbands, by recklessness and debauchery, pauper their wives, rob them of their children, sell their clothing for rum and slander their fair fame to cover or excuse their own falseness, -- good men exclaim, "These men are inhuman," "no humane or honorable man would do these things." "It is the fault of bad husbands."
But if the laws secured to married women, as they do to single women and men, their natural and inherent rights to the food, shelter and clothing which they earn, and to sue and defend in their own names; -- if they secured to the mothers an equal right with the fathers to the children, these things could not be done. These acts are legal acts, and being such, their inhumanity is chargeable upon the laws which protect and aid men in their commission. Both the "honorable men" who enacted these laws, and the "humane" men who make no effort for their repeal, must share the charge of inhumanity as aiders and abettors of the "bad husbands" who execute them upon helpless wives and children. If no humane or honorable man will commit such outrages, then is the conclusion irresistible, that the laws which sanction them are retained upon the statute books expressly for the use of rascals and mean men. And to what purpose? That they may crush, degrade and pauper women, whom honorable men profess to protect -- to represent.
The Constitution under which our Legislature acts, presents no bar to the following claims: --
1st. To making women legal voters in organizations, municipal or corporate, controlled or provided for by the Legislature.
2d. That married women be restored to their natural and inherent right to earnings in the common estate, as joint and equal partners, it being an act of justice more clear and imperative than the securing to them of property accumulated by ancestors.
3d. The right to sue and defend before courts of law without the joining of husbands therein, that they may be able, as fully as when single, to defend their property, persons and reputation against all aggressors, even though such aggressors should chance to be "bad husbands."
4th. An equal control of their children during the life of the father, and their guardianship at his death, with the same exemption from Probate fees, giving of bonds, &c.; such guardianship not to be extinguished by a subsequent marriage, -- it being equally unnatural to make the marriage of widow or widower legal ground for ignoring the natural claim of the child upon the parent, or the obligation of the parent to the child; and quite as monstrous for men to rob women of their children by law, as for women to desert them without law.
5th. Women being equally helpless and dependent as men, that widows be equally endowed with widowers in the estate which comprise their joint savings, and no more bound to keep their dowers in "good repair."
6th. That home being woman's sphere, it shall not be taken from wife or widow for the reason that they are such, but legally secured to both by the same tenure as to married men and widowers, and all property exemptions to vest as fully in the one as in the other, it being evidently as improper for men to legislate women out of their homes and home surroundings, as for women to desert them.
7th. That married women be as fully endowed in personal as in real estate, and equally secured therein against executions, mortgages or endorsements by or resulting from, the acts of the husband. There being no personal property exemptions vesting in the wife, the wives of personal property holders are not secured in their property rights equally with wives of real estate holders, -- an invidious distinction characteristic of class legislation.
8th. In cases of divorce, that the children be given to the party procuring the divorce, with one-half the joint estate, and of the remaining half, as much as may be required to meet half the expense of their maintenance. And in case of divorce of the wife for adultery, that she retain her own property, inherited and acquired; it being unconstitutional to confiscate property for offenses criminal or otherwise.
C. I. H. NICHOLS.
(Part Five, the Clarina I. H. Nichols Papers of 1869,
Will Appear in the Spring, 1974, Issue.)
Notes
JOSEPH G. GAMBONE is a member of the manuscript and archives staff of the Kansas Historical Society. He wishes to acknowledge his indebtedness to Vivian Bryan, Vermont State Library at Montpelier, T. D. Seymour Bassett, University of Vermont at Burlington, and Eva J. Leech, Brooks Memorial Library at Brattleboro, Vt., for their assistance in gathering these papers.
1. Vermont Phoenix, March 8, 1867.
2. In 1867 the Kansas legislature passed an amendment to the state constitution granting the elective franchise to women which was to be submitted to the male electorate at the November election. It was the first time that woman's suffrage had come up for a political test. For the text of the amendment, see House Journal of the Legislative Assembly of the State of Kansas, 1867, p. 1075.
3. In her reminiscences, Mrs. Nichols wrote: "In 1854, when I was about leaving Vermont for Kansas, an earnest friend of our cause protested that I was 'going to bury myself in Kansas, just as I had won an influence and awakened a public sentiment that assured the success of our demand for equal rights.' I replied that it was a thousand times more difficult to procure the repeal of unjust laws in an old State, than the adoption of just laws in the organization of a new State. That I could accomplish more for woman, even the women of the old States, and with less effort, in the new State of Kansas, than I could in conservative old Vermont, whose prejudices were so much stronger than its convictions, that justice to women must stand a criminal trial in every Court of the State to win, and then pay the costs." -- HWS, v. 1, p. 193.
4. [Correspondent] to the editor, [February, 1867,] cited in Vermont Phoenix, February 15, 1867.
5. In response to Mrs. Nichols's letter, the correspondent asserted: "Before I stop, let me assure Mrs. Nichols that I am not insensible to the sorrows, wrongs, and needs of woman; that I earnestly wish her to have all her rights; that I wish her to rise to an excellence and a perfection that she has not yet gained. The suffrage is proposed as one means of securing these. If it will, I welcome it. But whether it will I think is too serious a question to be answered off hand. For the present I doubt. But doubting as one who seeks the light, not who advocates a conclusion, I weigh and sift every argument that comes. Therefore, and not for opposition or selfishness sake, have I sifted the argument Mrs. N. has offered. I am not afraid of being beaten in the discussion -- for he alone is beaten who misses the truth. He who gains a truth, through change of his opinion, most surely wins." -- [Correspondent] to the editor, [March, 1867,] cited in ibid., March 15, 1867.
6. The Kansas Farmer, Lawrence, April, 1867. This journal, an agriculturally oriented newspaper, was edited by John Stillman Brown, a Unitarian minister who migrated to Kansas in 1857. For additional information on The Kansas Farmer and Brown, see Joseph W. Snell, ed., Guide to the Microfilm Edition of the John Stillman Brown Family Papers, 1818-1907 (Topeka, Kansas Historical Society, 1967), pp. 3-5; ["Kansas Newspaper History"], KHC, v. 1-2, pp. 164-165; William E. Connelley, ed., History of Kansas Newspapers (Topeka, Kansas Historical Society, 1916), p. 291.
7. The Kansas legislature also passed an amendment to the state constitution granting Negro suffrage. For the text of the amendment, see House Journal of the Legislative Assembly of the State of Kansas, 1867, p. 1073.
8. In May, 1867, John Stillman Brown published a letter from an opponent of the woman's suffrage movement. In introducing the adverse letter, Brown wrote: "Last month we admitted an article on the other side. We are willing both parties should be heard. The fact is we are drifting towards universal suffrage. The current is too strong to be successfully resisted. It will come sooner or later. There is no reason or logic which enters into an argument for male suffrage, which will not apply with equal force to female suffrage. If the lately emancipated slave is fit to carry a ballot, and exercise the right of franchise, we are very sure that our wives and daughters are as well qualified and can vote as understandingly as they. It is often said that our women do not ask for the ballot. Very well, we are disposed to give them the right of voting, without the asking. They can exercise the right or not just as they choose. When grave questions come up for decision, questions of education, temperance, morals, reform, justice, we think intelligent and thoughtful women will vote. We are not expecting any very great or radical change in our laws or policy by admitting a woman to the ballot. Whatever change is made will, we think, be gradual and beneficial; a better and truer element will be admitted into our politics, and our laws will become more just and humane." -- The Kansas Farmer, May, 1867.
9. Wyandotte Commercial Gazette, June 1, 1867. The Gazette was edited by Richard Baxter Taylor, a journalist who migrated to Kansas in 1858. For additional information on the Gazette and Taylor see "In Memoriam -- Hon. Richard Baxter Taylor," KHC, v. 1-2 (1875-1880), pp. 161-164; ["Kansas Newspaper History,"] ibid., p. 180; Connelley, History of Kansas Newspapers, p. 318; Andreas and Cutler, History of the State of Kansas, pp. 1239-1240; The United States Biographical Dictionary, Kansas Volume, pp. 315-316.
Throughout the 1867 suffrage campaign, Taylor supported the passage of the constitutional amendments granting the franchise to Negroes and women. In a brief editorial, Taylor wrote: "We are for giving women the right to vote -- or rather for recognizing their right, and asking them to assert, maintain and act under it. We should not perhaps have voted for submitting the question just yet, had we been a member of the Legislature. But now that it has been submitted, and the matter brought about, at least in part, by the enemies of impartial suffrage, thinking to defeat all efforts in that direction, we believe the right way to be to accept the situation and give the old fogies, rebels, conservatives, and antediluvians "Hail Columbia. " -- Wyandotte Commercial Gazette, March 16, 1867.
10. For "Philo's" earlier articles on the suffrage question, see ibid., April 20, 27, 1867. In response to "Philo's" first article on the suffrage question, Richard Baxter Taylor asserted: "What do you say 'Philo?' Talk right to the point. Deny our position fairly if you can. In any event, let your argument be short, sharp and decisive. We see by your opening, that you can bring the great argument of the opposition, ridicule, to bear in as genteel a manner as the best of them. -- But don't, we pray, depend on ridicule altogether. Give us, if you can, some good, sound, sensible reasons why your wife, if you have one, has not as good a right, by nature, to the ballot, as the ignorant, drunken loafer of the male persuasion who lives across the way, and always sells his ballot for a glass of whiskey?" -- Ibid., April 20, 1867.
11. Ibid., May 25, 1867.
12. In reply to Mrs. Nichols's letter, "Philo" wrote: "I am admonished by the manner with which she wields the pen, that one of the strongest friends of this reformatory measure is watching vigilantly; and with a determination of purpose to see that no real or imaginary unfair advantage be taken in the public discussion of the question. Of all this I do not in the slightest manner complain, as my chief object in broaching the subject at all, was to get all the light, which the friends of Impartial Suffrage could shed upon it." For the complete text of "Philo's" letter, see ibid., June 15, 1867.
13. Western Home Journal, Ottawa, June 27, 1867. Isaac S. Kalloch, radical editor of the Western Home Journal, was a controversial public figure throughout his career in Kansas. An ordained Baptist minister, he was actively involved in land and railroad promotion and indulged in Kansas politics. For additional information on Kalloch, see Marion M. Marberry, The Golden Voice: A Biography of Isaac S. Kalloch (New York, Farrar, Straus and Company, 1947).
Although Kalloch vigorously supported the enfranchisement of Negroes, he believed that the woman's suffrage amendment should have been submitted to the electorate at a later date. In an editorial on the suffrage question, he wrote: "Our opinion is, that were the question of female suffrage presented on its merits; were the right demanded or asked by the sensible, intelligent and patriotic women of this State; it would be conferred almost without a count. We should certainly advocate it and vote for it with all our heart. But as it is, it is precipitated upon us; we are unprepared for it; it is unfortunately and ungallantly mixed up with another question; the women of the State have not been consulted or heard from on the subject; it has been projected into the canvass by some to weaken and distract the effort in behalf of Negro suffrage, and by others as a stupendous joke; and if we could have our way about it the entire question should be ignored until it is presented in a proper way, under petitions from those interested in it, and an opportunity furnished for its thorough discussion upon its own merits." -- Western Home Journal, April 25, 1867.
14. Charles V. Eskridge, a Republican politician, was a member of the state legislature during the 1860's and was elected lieutenant governor of Kansas in 1868. During the suffrage campaign of 1867, Eskridge was extremely vocal in his opposition to woman's suffrage, or "female suffrage," as he called it. In his article on the suffrage question, Eskridge asserted: "Next to the grasshopper humbug, in point of damage to the State, is this question of Female Suffrage. It is the most impudent, frivolous, uncalled for proposition ever crammed into the throats of the people, by a shystering legislature." -- Ibid., June 13, 1867. Eskridge's article was originally published in the Emporia News, June 7, 1867. For additional biographical information on Eskridge, see Andreas and Cutler, History of the State of Kansas, pp. 853-854; The United States Biographical Dictionary, Kansas Volume, pp. 122-125; A Biographical History of Central Kansas, v. 2 (New York, The Lewis Publishing Company, 1902), pp. 1084-1086.
15. Lucy Stone, one of the pioneer leaders in the woman's rights movement, played an active role in the 1867 woman's suffrage campaign in Kansas. She was an eloquent and impressive speaker and was well received during her lecture tour of the state. Lucy Stone's friendship with Mrs. Nichols dated back to the first national woman's rights convention in 1850 at Worcester, Mass. For additional biographical information on Lucy Stone, see Hays, Morning Star: A Biography of Lucy Stone, 1818-1893; Riegel, American Feminists, pp. 83-95, passim; NAW, v. 1, pp 387-390; DAB, v. 18, pp. 80-81.
16. In his article on woman's suffrage, Eskridge wrote: "Lucy Stone, the petticoat chief, commenced public life (in a political way) by advocating the free love doctrine -- so I'm told by one who is acquainted with her history from the start. She don't believe in marriage for life, but wishes all to do like her and that seed-wart she carries around with her -- called Blackwell -- drop off to some other 'affinity' whenever it pleases either to do so. She is practically carrying out the free-love doctrine in her present relation to Blackwell. This is proof sufficient of her free-love proclivities without 'producing the papers.' The women of Kansas must feel themselves insulted and their natures outraged when they reflect upon the fact that such stock as Lucy Stone was imported to tell them what to do." -- Emporia News, June 7, 1867.
17. Stephen Pearl Andrews, reformer and eccentric philosopher, was the best known contemporary advocate of free love. He founded "Modern Times City," a free-love community on Long Island. He believed that complete personal freedom for everyone, both male and female, would allow the evolution of an utopian society. For additional biographical information on Andrews, see Stewart H. Holbrook, Dreamers of the American Dream (Garden City, Doubleday & Company, 1957), pp. 43-45; DAB, v. 1, pp. 298-299; Wilson and Fiske, Appleton's Cyclopaedia of American Biography, v. 1, p. 76.
18. For additional information on Mrs. Nichols's confrontation with Andrews and the "free love" movement, see Nichols to Anthony [September, 1853], "Susan B. Anthony Papers," Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe College.
19. Mrs. Nichols refers here to the "marriage protest" signed by Lucy Stone and Henry B. Blackwell prior to their marriage on May 1, 1855. They protested against marriage laws and the legal status of a wife, and asserted their belief that "marriage should be an equal and permanent partnership, and so recognized by law." The most unusual feature of their marriage was that Lucy Stone retained her maiden name as a further protest against the wife's legal subserviency. For the complete text of the "marriage protest," see Kraditor, Up From the Pedestal: Selected Writings in the History of American Feminism, pp. 149-150. Also, see HWS, v. 1, pp. 260-262.
In a letter to the editor of the Atchison Champion in May, 1867, Lucy Stone denied that her marriage was "only a common partnership, relinquishable at the pleasure of either or both parties" and stated: "With regard to our marriage protest, it was published 'before Israel and the sun,' and is its own justification. Personally, I would neither stop, nor stoop to notice the charge against it or myself. But when it is perverted to prejudice the claim of fifteen million of American women to the elective franchise, for the causes sake I am bound to repeat what we said in our protest viz: 'that we regard marriage as a noble and permanent partnership of equals with reciprocal rights and duties." -- Lucy Stone to the editor [May, 1867], cited in Atchison Daily Champion, May 10, 1867.
20. Henry B. Blackwell was one of the earliest advocates of woman's suffrage in the United States. He was recording secretary of the American Equal Rights Association in 1867 and accompanied his wife, Lucy Stone, on her lecture tour m Kansas. For additional information on Blackwell and his involvement in the 1867 woman's suffrage campaign, see McKenna, "'With the Help of God and Lucy Stone,'" pp. 15, 21, 23; HWS, v. 2, pp. 232-233, 235-237; DAB, v. 2, p. 321; The Woman's Journal, Boston, September 11, 1909; Boston Post, September 8, 1909; Boston Daily Globe, September 8, 1909; Blackwell to Samuel N. Wood, Lawrence, April 2, 1867, "Woman Suffrage Papers"; Blackwell to Wood, New York, July 25, September 27, 1867, ibid.
Shortly after his arrival in Kansas, Blackwell wrote to Elizabeth Cady Stanton: "Everything has conspired to help us in this State. Gov. Robinson and Sam. Wood have quietly set a ball in motion which nobody in Kansas is now strong enough to stop. Politicians' hair here is fairly on end. But the fire is in the prairie behind them, and they are getting out their matches in self-defense to fire their foreground. This is a glorious country, Mrs. S., and a glorious people. If we succeed here, it will be the State of the Future. -- Blackwell to Stanton, Lawrence, April 5, 1867, cited in HWS, v. 2, p. 233.
21. See New York Daily Tribune, May 4, 1855; New York Daily Times, May 4, 1855; The Liberator, Boston, May 4, 1855.
22. In a second article on the woman's suffrage question, Charles V. Eskridge continued his assault on both the movement and Lucy Stone. He asserted: "Is it not plain to be seen that the object of adopting the proposition is to create the individuality of husband and wife in a social point of view, and in all their actions, aims and purposes to stimulate and educate them to assert and maintain their individual independence of each other, notwithstanding the Divine command, 'they two shall be one.' This is the substance of Lucy Stone's celebrated 'Protest' -- this is what the friends of the proposition advocate. It is this idea that caused Lucy to register her name at the hotels in Kansas, as 'Lucy Stone,' and her novel, sleeping and pusillanimous partner, as 'Henry Blackwell.' It is this idea connected with the proposition that will ultimately destroy the sacredness of the marriage obligation and reduce it to a mere partnership to be dissolved by the parties, at their will and pleasure." For the complete text of Eskridge's article, see Emporia News, July 12, 1867. Also, see Eskridge to the editor, Emporia, July 11, 1867, cited in White Cloud Kansas Chief, July 25, 1867.
23. ALS in "Woman Suffrage Papers." After the adjournment of the Kansas legislature, Wood launched an impartial suffrage campaign in Kansas to secure the passage of the constitutional amendment granting the franchise to women. On April 2, 1867, a convention was held in Topeka to form the Kansas Impartial Suffrage Association. For additional information, see McKenna, "'With the Help of God and Lucy Stone,'" pp, 14-15; HWS, v. 2, pp. 232-235; Leavenworth Daily Times, April 3, 1867; Leavenworth Daily Conservative, April 5, 1867; Topeka Tribune, April 5, 1867; Atchison Daily Champion, April 5, 1867; Emporia News, April 12, 1867; Wyandotte Commercial Gazette, April 6, 1867; Topeka Weekly Leader, April 4, 1867.
Although this letter is badly mutilated, it has been included because of its interesting contents concerning Mrs. Nichols's involvement in the 1867 suffrage campaign. Where missing letters or words were not obvious, the author has resorted to conjecture with editorial insertions followed by a question mark. Where the missing words have not been ascertainable, even by conjecture, they have been indicated by brackets and ellipses. Unfortunately none of Wood's correspondence to Mrs. Nichols is extant.
24. Mrs. Nichols refers here to the Topeka convention of April 2, 1867, at which both she and Lucy Stone delivered addresses. In a letter to Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Lucy Stone wrote: "We went to Topeka; and the day and evening before the convention, pulled every wire and set every honest trap. Gov. Robinson has a long head, and he arranged the 'platform' so shrewdly, carefully using the term 'impartial,' which he said meant right, and we must make them use it, so that there would be no occasion for any other State Association. In this previous meeting, the most prominent men of the State were made officers, and the morning's discussion was over, everybody then felt that the ball was set right. But in the P. M. came a Methodist minister and a lawyer from Lawrence as delegates 'instructed' to use the word 'impartial,' 'as it had been used for the last two years,' to make but one issue, and to drop the woman. The lawyer said, 'If I was a negro [sic], I would not want the woman hitched on to my skirts.' etc. He made a mean speech. Mrs. Nichols and I came down upon him, and the whole convention, except the Methodist, was against him. The vote was taken whether to drop the woman, and only the little lawyer from Lawrence, with a hole in his coat and only one shoe on, voted against the woman. After that it was all one way." -- Stone to Stanton, Leavenworth, April 10, 1867, cited in HWS, v. 2, p. 234.
25. The Rev. Hugh D. Fisher was the presiding elder of the Methodist Episcopal church in Quindaro. He migrated to Kansas in 1858 and served as a pastor in Leavenworth and Lawrence before the Civil War. He was appointed chaplain of the Fifth Kansas cavalry in 1861. Unfortunately no Quindaro newspapers are extant for 1867 to locate information on Fisher's anti-woman's suffrage sermon and no reference is found in the Wyandotte Commercial Gazette. For additional biographical information on Fisher, see Perl W. Morgan, ed., History of Wyandotte County, Kansas, and Its People (Chicago, The Lewis Publishing Company, 1911), v. 1, p. 347; Hugh D. Fisher, The Gun and the Gospel: Early Kansas and Chaplain Fisher (4th ed., Kansas City, Hudson-Kimberly Publishing Co., 1902); John Francis, "An Incident of the War in 1862," KHC, v. 7 (1901-1902), p. 163. Mrs. Nichols probably refers to the Rev. J. E. Bryan as the resident minister. He was sent by the Methodist Episcopal church to Quindaro in 1866. For additional biographical information on Bryan, see Morgan, History of Wyandotte County, Kansas, and Its People, v. 1, p. 347; Rev. Joab Spencer, "The Methodist Episcopal Church, South, in Kansas -- 1854 to 1906," KHC, v. 12 (1911-1912), pp. 145-147, 152, 153.
26. In the spring of 1867 swarms of grasshoppers damaged wheat, corn, and oat fields and vegetable gardens in northeastern Kansas. For additional information on the grasshoppers in Kansas, see Mary F. Brown, "My Experiences With the Grasshoppers in 1866-67," "Grasshoppers -- Miscellaneous History Papers," manuscript division, KSHS; George A. Root, compiler, "Grasshoppers in Kansas," ibid. For contemporary newspaper commentary, see Wathena Reporter, July 4, 18, 1867; White Cloud Kansas Chief, June 20, 27, July 4, 1867; Kansas Weekly New Era, Medina, June 26, 1867; Wyandotte Commercial Gazette, May 11, July 13, 1867; Wyandotte Democrat, June 14, 28, 1867; Atchison Daily Champion, May 26, June 8, 30, July 9, 23, 1867; Leavenworth Daily Times, June 25, 1867. In an editorial on grasshoppers, the editor of The Kansas Farmer wrote: "These miserable pests are still furnishing a theme of talk, speculation and anxiety. That they are doing damage at the present moment cannot be denied. That they threaten still wider damage is conceded on all hands. Still we retain our hopefulness. The actual damage they have already done in the aggregate is not great, though individual gardens and farms have suffered immensely. There is no way to prevent their ravages. We must be ready to take advantage of times and opportunities. If they withdraw from any locality we must be ready to sow or plant whatever there is a prospect of the season's maturing." -- The Kansas Farmer, July, 1867.
27. A thorough search of the Wathena Reporter and White Cloud Kansas Chief failed to uncover any information on Mrs. Nichols's canvass of Doniphan county. In regard to her activities in the woman's suffrage campaign, Mrs. Nichols wrote in her reminiscences: "In the autumn of 1867, the Legislature of Kansas having submitted to the voters of the State a woman suffrage amendment to its Constitution, I gave some four weeks to the canvass, which was engaged in by some of the ablest friends of the cause from other States, among them Lucy Stone, Rev. Olympia Brown, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Susan B. Anthony. In our own State, among others, Governor Robinson, John Ritchie, and S. N. Wood of the old Free State Guard, rallied to the work. With the canvass of Atchison and Jefferson Counties, and a few lectures in Douglas, Shawnee, and Osage Counties, I retired from a field overlaid with happy reminders of past trials merged in present blessings. The work was in competent hands, but the time was ill-chosen on account of the political complications with negro [sic] suffrage, and failure was the result." -- HWS, v. 1, p. 200.
28. No information has been located on either Mr. Martin or the Doniphan County Woman's Suffrage Association.
29. An examination of the Topeka Weekly Leader and Topeka Tribune failed to produce information concerning Mrs. Nichols's arrival in Topeka or the convening of a suffrage convention on July 5, 1867.
30. John W. Horner, educator and newspaper editor, migrated to Kansas in 1865 and became president of Baker University in Baldwin. In the fall of 1867 he was appointed an instructor at Kansas University. He resigned after one year to establish the Chetopa Advance in Labette county. For additional information, see ["Kansas Newspaper History,"] KHC, v. 1-2, pp. 166, 167, 170; F. H. Snow, "The Beginnings of the University of Kansas," ibid., v. 6 (1897-1900), p. 74.
31. Joseph P. Root, first lieutenant governor of Kansas, was elected one of the vice-presidents of the Kansas Impartial Suffrage Association at the April convention in Topeka. For additional biographical information, see DAB, v. 16, pp. 150-151; United States Biographical Dictionary, Kansas Volume, pp. 249-251; Wyandotte County and Kansas City; Historical and Biographical (Chicago, The Goodspeed Publishing Company, 1890), pp. 788-790.
32. On April 29, 1867, Mrs. Nichols had lectured on woman's suffrage in Wyandotte. She prefaced her address stating that "whatever she should advance in favor of giving the elective franchise to women, would apply equally to the Negro." In regard to her lecture, the Wyandotte Commercial Gazette stated: 'The speaker then dwelt on the inequality of women before the law, and urged that although now, women in Kansas were protected in some measure in their civil rights; that this might be all changed by future legislatures, caused by the prejudices of Eastern people coming into the State, and that Kansas women were liable at any moment to lose the foothold they have gained. She also discussed the objections made to Impartial Suffrage with great candor and fairness, and pointed her remarks with illustrations and anecdotes." -- Wyandotte Commercial Gazette, May 4. 1867.
On May 5, 1867, Mrs. Nichols had lectured on the "Bible Position of Women" in Quindaro. She had attempted to show that woman had been created equal with man and held equal rights. The correspondent of the Wyandotte Commercial Gazette asserted: "Any person, whatever might be their sentiments in regard to the question, could not but see the strength and force of her remarks. Mrs. Nichols is about to canvass the State, and she will be listened to with great interest wherever she speaks." -- Ibid., May 11, 1867.
33. Mrs. Nichols refers here to the Kansas State Journal published at Lawrence by Milton W. Reynolds. Unfortunately there are only a few extant issues for 1867 and they contain no reference to Mrs. Nichols.
34. ALS in "Woman Suffrage Papers."
35. No information has been found concerning a suffrage meeting in Topeka on July 8, 1867.
36. AL in "Woman Suffrage Papers."
37. John Ritchie, a long-time advocate of woman's suffrage, was elected one of the vice-presidents of the Kansas Impartial Suffrage Association in 1867. During the Wyandotte constitutional convention in 1859, Ritchie had supported the adoption of woman's rights provisions. For additional biographical information, see Andreas and Cutler, History of the State of Kansas, p. 575; S. S. Prouty, "Kansas as a Factor," KHC, v. 1-2 (1875-1880), p. 134; Benjamin F. Simpson, "The Wyandotte Constitutional Convention," ibid., pp. 238, 245. No information concerning the woman's suffrage campaign in Jefferson county has been found.
38. On July 15, 1867, Mrs. Nichols presented a lecture on the "Bible Position of Woman" in Wyandotte. According to the editor of the Commercial Gazette, her address was "a very able argument going to show that the position of woman by the Bible was in no respect inferior to that allotted to man. We think that no one who listened to her discourse would like to undertake to controvert her positions. " -- Wyandotte Commercial Gazette, July 20, 1867.
39. For the published schedule of suffrage meetings to be attended by Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, Edmund G. Ross, Samuel C. Pomeroy, Sidney Clarke, and other notable speakers, see ibid., August 10, 24, 1867.
40. ARS in "Linn County History Papers."
41. Wyandotte Commercial Gazette, September 28, 1867.
42. The Rev. Eben Blachly was a Presbyterian minister who migrated to Kansas in the early 1860's and settled at Quindaro. No additional biographical information has been found.
43. Mrs. Nichols refers here to the reign of Maximilien Robespierre, the French revolutionist, who, more than any other man, may be said to have been the guiding spirit of the French Revolution of 1789.
44. In regard to the Rev. Mr. Blachly's argument against woman's suffrage, the editor of the Wyandotte Commercial Gazette asserted that he did not present a very "plausible case . . . against woman suffrage." The editor concluded: "The grand doctrine of the Bible is expressed in the Golden Rule, 'Do unto others as you would that they should do unto you,' and that is certainly in direct opposition to slavery, white or black, male or female, and most decidedly favorable to equality of rights, suffrage included." -- Wyandotte Commercial Gazette, August 24, 1867.
45. Ibid., October 19, 1867. This letter is a continuation of Mrs. Nichols's reply to the Rev. Mr. Blachly's article on woman's suffrage published in the Commercial Gazette, August 17, 1867.
46. Mrs. Nichols refers here to the six volume Commentary on the Holy Bible written by Adam Clarke, who began his study in 1798 and completed it in 1825. Before his death in 1832, Clarke revised and corrected his original edition. For Clarke's interpretation of the Jewish ordinance on woman, see Clarke, The New Testament of Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. A Commentary and Critical Notes (rev. ed., New York, Eaton & Mains, 1883), v. 6, p. 154 (hereafter cited Commentary). For additional biographical information, see Leslie Stephen, ed., Dictionary of National Biography, v. 10 (New York, MacmiIlan and Co., 1887), pp. 413-414 (hereafter cited DNB).
47. Wyandotte Commercial Gazette, October 26, 1867.
48. Vermont Phoenix, March 6, 1868.
49. In early February, 1868, Mrs. Nichols sold her home in Quindaro and moved to Wyandotte where she purchased a farm "adjoining and partly within" the city limits. In announcing her arrival in Wyandotte, the editor of the Commercial Gazette stated: "She has got one of the most beautiful and romantic situations in the State, . . . We hope to hear from her more frequently, now that she has got within speaking distance of the Gazette office." -- Wyandotte Commercial Gazette, February 29, 1868.
50. Ibid., March 7, 1868.
51. Jesse J. Keplinger was elected county clerk in 1867. No additional biographical information has been found.
52. John M. Funk migrated to Kansas in 1856 and settled at Wyandotte in 1857. He associated himself with the Republican party and was elected mayor of Wyandotte, city treasurer, and Wyandotte county treasurer. For additional biographical information, see The History of Jackson County, Missouri (Kansas City, Union Historical Company, 1881), pp. 693, 719; Wyandotte County and Kansas City; Historical and Biographical, p. 246.
53. In response to Mrs. Nichols's comments, Jesse J. Keplinger wrote: "As to the charge of incompetency I would say I am much mistaken if all the calculations on the tax roll are not correct, . . . and would add that the books of the Treasurer do not show that the county has received more than the true amount of taxes on the land owned by them jointly." -- Keplinger to the editor [Wyandotte, March, 1868], cited in Wyandotte Commercial Gazette, March 14, 1868.
54. The 1867 Kansas liquor law required an applicant for a liquor license to present a petition signed by a majority of the adult residents, "both male and female." -- See The Laws of the State of Kansas, 1867, pp. 93-94.
55. A thorough examination of Kansas statutes proved unsuccessful in locating a widow's property exemption law. However, in 1855 exemption law exempted the homestead of "every free white householder . . . male or female," not in excess of $750 from levy and sale. -- See The Statutes of the Territory of Kansas, 1855, p. 360.
56. Apparently Mrs. Nichols is in error about the Kansas dower law. According to the 1855 law, a widow was entitled to one half of her husband's estate if no children or other descendants survived, or one third of his estate if children or other descendants survived, and was endowed with one third of all her husband's land. The dower law of 1860 not only offered the same provisions but also allowed the widow to use the provisions of the 1859 married woman's property rights law or the descents and distributions law which entitled her to one half of her husband's estate. The 1868 descents and distribution law also entitled a widow to one half of her husband's estate. No legislation has been found indicating the percentage change as stated by Mrs. Nichols. -- See ibid., p. 314; General Laws of the Territory of Kansas, 1859, p. 381; ibid., 1860, pp. 110-111; The General Laws of the State of Kansas, 1868, p. 393.
57. An unsuccessful attempt was made in the 1868 legislature to amend the 1867 liquor law by substituting the word "electors" for "residents" in the method of petitioning for a liquor license. -- See House Journal of the Legislative Assembly of the State of Kansas, 1868, pp. 587, 593-594, 614. For the 1868 liquor law, see The General Laws of the State of Kansas, 1868, p. 399.
58. A thorough search of the 1868 senate and house journals failed to produce information on the homestead exemption amendment.
59. Mrs. Nichols's letter was reprinted in The Revolution, a woman's suffrage journal, published by Susan B. Anthony. In introducing the letter, Miss Anthony wrote that Mrs. Nichols was "one of the noble pioneers in Kansas, who tried in the first Constitutional Convention of that state to have the words 'white male' stricken out, that all its citizens might stand before the law." In concluding her comments, Miss Anthony stated that Mrs. Nichols "knew more about the laws than any man in the state" and that she was "an able speaker" who hated "taxation without representation." -- The Revolution, New York, March 26, 1868.
60. Wyandotte Commercial Gazette, March 21, 1868.
61. In his letter to the Commercial Gazette, Mr. Keplinger wrote: "I cannot vouch for anything that transpired in the payment of the taxes but would say this, that it is the property that is held for the payment of the taxes, and it is the persons business paying, to see that they do not pay any but taxes on their own land. But there are many instances occurring, where through error parties have paid on the wrong property, but I do not know an instance where the property owners have not refunded the taxes so erroneously paid other than the one spoken of by your correspondent. . . Long after the taxes had been paid, Mrs. Nichols claimed there was an error in her taxes, and on investigation I found the facts as above stated, and made an approximate calculation of the amount she had over paid, and an explanation with it, so plain that I think no one could misunderstand, showing that she had paid part of Mr. Morgan's taxes, and that he was morally if not legally bound to refund the same to Mrs. N. I do not know whether he has been applied to or not, but I am much mistaken in the man if he would not refund the amount on application." -- Ibid., March 14, 1868.
62. Rynear Morgan migrated to Kansas in 1854 and eventually settled on a farm next to Mrs. Nichols's in Wyandotte county. For additional biographical information, see E. F. Heisler and D. M. Smith, Atlas Map of Johnson County, Kansas (Wyandotte, E. F. Heisler & Co., 1874), p. 71.
63. James A. Cruise was Wyandotte county reigster of deeds and city clerk of Wyandotte in the 1860's. -- See Morgan, History of Wyandotte County Kansas and Its People, v. 1, p. 277; Wyandotte County and Kansas City; Historical and Biographical, p. 366. No additional biographical information has been found.
64. The Revolution, April 30, 1868. Susan B. Anthony began publication of her new woman's suffrage journal on January 8, 1868. Although The Revolution emphasized the struggle for woman's suffrage, it did not remain aloof from the pressing problems of the day. Miss Anthony spoke out on all public questions -- social, political and economic issues -- and was involved in current public affairs. For additional information on Miss Anthony and The Revolution, see Lutz, Susan B. Anthony: Rebel, Crusader, Humanitarian, p. 135-158; Flexner, Century of Struggle: The Woman's Rights Movement in the United States, pp. 150-153.
65. In reprinting Mrs. Nichols's letter to the Wyandotte Commercial Gazette, The Revolution erroneously gave her tax overpayment as $1,100 rather than $11.00. -- See The Revolution, March 26, 1868.
66. See Footnote 56.
67. Again Mrs. Nichols's interpretation of Kansas law is in error. According to the 1859 and 1868 descents and distributions laws, the widowed mother would inherit a deceased child's estate if no heirs were found. -- See General Laws of the Territory of Kansas, 1859, pp. 382-383; The General Statutes of the State of Kansas, 1868, p. 394.
68. The 1868 liquor law allowed the "corporate authorities" of first and second class cities to dispense with the petition method for granting liquor licenses through an ordinance and invested the city council with the power to grant liquor licenses. -- See ibid., p. 399.
69. Although Mrs. Nichols had few favorable comments about the 1868 Kansas legislature, a new woman's rights law was passed respecting the legal and economic rights of married women. -- See ibid., pp. 562-563.
70. Wyandotte Commercial Gazette, August 1, 1868.
71. On the morning of July 18, 1868, the train carrying Gens. Ulysses S. Grant, William Tecumseh Sherman, and Philip H. Sheridan on an inspection tour of the Union Pacific railroad from Fort Leavenworth to Denver arrived in Lawrence. For a contemporary newspaper account, see Kansas Daily Tribune, Lawrence, July 19, 1868. Available secondary sources on Grant, Sherman, and Sheridan are too extensive to be cited. For adequate biographical sketches, see DAB, v. 7, pp. 492-501, v. 17, pp. 79-81, 93-97.
72. Unfortunately there are no extant issues of either the Manhattan Independent or Kansas Radical for the date of Grant's arrival in Manhattan.
73. Schuyler Colfax, a congressman from Indiana and speaker of the house, was the Republican party's Vice-Presidential candidate in 1868 and served in that capacity during Grant's first administration. For additional biographical information, see Willard H. Smith, Schuyler Colfax: The Changing Fortunes of a Political Idol (Indianapolis, Indiana Historical Bureau, 1952).
74. Benjamin F. Mudge was appointed state geologist in 1864 and, subsequently, elected geologist of the State Board of Agriculture. In 1865 he was appointed a professor of natural sciences at Kansas State Agricultural College in Manhattan. For additional biographical information, see J. D. Walters, "The Kansas State Agricultural College," KHC, v. 7 (1901-1902), pp. 175-176; Wyandotte County and Kansas City: Historical and Biographical, p. 137; Morgan, History of Wyandotte County Kansas and Its People, v. 1, pp. 255-256.
75. Harriet Beecher Stowe, author and humanitarian, published a series of biographical sketches of notable American men in her book, Men of Our Times. For her sketch of Grant, see Stowe, Men of Our Times; or Leading Patriots of the Day (Hartford, Hartford Publishing Co., 1868), pp. 111-151. For biographical information on Mrs. Stowe, see NAW, v. 3, pp. 393-402; DAB, v. 18, pp. 115-120; Forrest Wilson, Crusader in Crinoline: The Life of Harriet Beecher Stowe (Philadelphia, J. B. Lippincott, 1941).
76. The Rev. Joseph Denison was one of the early organizers of Bluemont Central College, the forerunner of Kansas State Agricultural College, and served as its president in 1863. He later was appointed president of Baker University. For additional biographical information, see Walters, "The Kansas State Agricultural College," pp. 169, 174-179; Julius T. Willard, History of the Kansas State College of Agriculture and Applied Science (Manhattan, Kansas State College Press, 1940), pp. 17-33; Willard, "Bluemont Central College, the Forerunner of Kansas State College,"; KHQ, v. 13 (May, 1945), pp. 323-357; Homer Kingsley Ebright, The History of Baker University (Baldwin, n. p., 1951), pp. 90-92.
77. Isaac T. Goodnow, pioneer educator, emigrated to Kansas in 1855 and associated himself with the Free-State movement. He was instrumental in establishing Bluemont Central College in 1857. He was elected state superintendent of public instruction in 1862 and was reelected in 1864. For additional biographical information, see DAB, v. 7, pp. 394-395; Connelley, A Standard History of Kansas and Kansans, v. 4, pp. 1853-1854; Portrait and Biographical Album of Washington, Clay and Riley Counties, Kansas (Chicago, Chapman Bros., 1890 ) pp. 545-549; Willard, "Bluemont Central College, the Forerunner of Kansas State College," pp. 323-357.
78. Kansas State College was established in 1863 under the Morrill act which provided land grants for the endowment of agricultural colleges. For additional information, see Willard, History of the Kansas State College of Agriculture and Applied Science; Willard, "Bluemont Central College, the Forerunner of Kansas State College," pp. 323-357; Walters, "The Kansas State Agricultural College," pp. 167-188.
79. The town of St. Mary's was located in Pottawatomie county on the Kansas river and the Union Pacific railroad. For additional information on St. Mary's, see Blackmar, Kansas: A Cyclopedia of State History, Embracing Events, Institutions, Industries, Counties, Cities, Towns, Prominent Persons, Etc., v. 2, p. 632.
80. Wyandotte Commercial Gazette, August 22, 1868.
81. William McKay, an attorney from Indiana, migrated to Kansas in 1857 and settled at Wyandotte. In 1858 he was elected to the Kansas supreme court under the Leavenworth constitution. No additional biographical information has been found. See The History of Jackson County, Missouri, pp. 678, 685, 691-693; T. Dwight Thacher, "The Leavenworth Constitutional Convention," KHC, v. 3 (1881-1884), p. 9.
82. Isaiah Walker, the son of Gov. William Walker's brother Isaac, was an influential leader in the Wyandot tribe. He was one of the first merchants in Kansas City, Mo., and in Wyandotte county, and was an excellent businessman. For additional biographical information, see Connelley, The Provisional Government of Nebraska, pp. 344-345; Connelley, "Kansas City, Kansas: Its Place in the History of the State," KHC, v. 15 (1919-1922), p. 185; biographical sketch of Isaiah Walker, "William E. Connelley Papers," manuscript division, KSHS. For a description of Walker's land allotments, see "Wyandot and Shawnee Indian Lands in Wyandotte County, Kansas," pp. 146-147.
83. No biographical information has been found on Mr. Ball.
84. No biographical information has been found on Mrs. Orton.
85. No biographical information has been found on Mr. Buttrick.
86. The "Green Corn Festival," a ceremonial feast, was held by the Wyandots in honor of the new corn harvest. The feast generally occurred on the 15th of August as that was the day on which the Wyandots were first received into the Catholic Church. During the ceremony unnamed children of the tribe were named and adults wishing to dispose of their old names were given new names on that day. For additional information, see [Peter Dooyentate Clarke,] Origin and Traditional History of the Wyandotts (Toronto, Rose & Co., 1870), pp. 148-149. For a contemporary newspaper account of the festival, see "Vag" to the editor [Quindaro, August, 1868], cited in Wyandotte Commercial Gazette, August 22, 1868.
87. Mrs. Nichols refers here to Margaret Solomon, a Wyandotte Indian. For the legal description of Mrs. Solomon's land allotment, see "Wyandot and Shawnee Indian Lands in Wyandotte County, Kansas," p. 144.
88. William Walker, one of the most influential men in the Wyandot nation, was an eloquent speaker and a forceful writer. An ardent Democrat, he was appointed provisional governor of Nebraska territory in 1853. For additional biographical information, see Connelley, The Provisional Government of Nebraska Territory, pp. 11-16, 157-406; Ray E. Merwin, "The Wyandot Indians," KHC, v. 9 (1905-1906), pp. 84-85.
89. John Gray-Eyes became chief of the Wyandots in 1870. Although he had studied law, his promising legal career was ruined by his excessive use of liquor. For additional biographical information, see Connelley, The Provisional Government of Nebraska Territory, pp. 173, 254.
90. The Rev. Charles Bluejacket, hereditary chief of the Shawnees migrated to Kansas with the remnants of the Shawnee tribe in 1832. He eventually moved to the Indian territory in 1871 and died at his home in Blue Jacket, Okla., on October 29, 1897. For additional biographical information, see John Bennett, Blue Jacket: War Chief of the Shawnees and His Part in Ohio's History (Chillicothe, Ohio, Fromm Printing Co., 1943), pp. 32-33; Lutz, "The Methodist Missions Among the Indian Tribes in Kansas," pp. 164, 182-184; Connelley, "The First Provisional Constitution of Kansas," KHC, v. 6 (1897-1900), pp. 113-114.
91. John B. Scroggs migrated to Kansas in 1866 and settled at Wyandotte where he practiced law. Although a Democrat, he was elected Wyandotte county attorney in 1868. For additional biographical information, see Andreas and Cutler, History of the State of Kansas, p. 1239; Morgan, History of Wyandotte County Kansas and Its People, v. 2, pp. 956-957.
92. The correspondent of the Commercial Gazette gave the following account of the speeches presented at the Wyandot festival: "About 11 o'clock the audience assembled around the speaker's stand, and listened to an able address by Gov. Walker, in Wyandotte, which he afterward interpreted in English -- it was full of instruction. Other speakers followed in the aboriginal tongue, the merits of whose speeches your correspondent cannot pass judgment upon, but judging from the silent attention given by those who understand the language, they must have been addresses of such merit." -- "Vag" to the editor [Quindaro, August, 1868], cited in Wyandotte Commercial Gazette, August 22, 1868.
93. For a brief survey of the early history of the Huron Indians, see Frederick Webb Hodge, ed., Handbook of American Indians North of Mexico, pt. 1 (Bureau of American Ethnology, Washington, Government Printing Office, 1907), pp. 584-591.
94. Mrs. Nichols refers here to the 4th of July celebration held in Wyandotte. For a newspaper account of the festivities, see Wyandotte Commercial Gazette, July 11, 1868.
95. Ibid., September 12, 1868.
96. Mrs. Nichols refers here to the two Quindaro correspondents of the Wyandotte Commercial Gazette.
97. The Commercial Gazette announced that the Republicans of Quindaro held a spirited political rally on September 2, 1868. In regard to the meeting, the editor wrote: "We expected that some of our friends in Quindaro would have sent us a more detailed account of the meeting, but as none has come to hand, we give this item, as embracing all the facts we have been able to obtain." -- Ibid., September 5, 1868.
98. Stephen A. Cobb migrated to Kansas in 1859 and settled at Wyandotte. In 1862 he was elected mayor but resigned his office to serve in the 13th army corps during the war. Returning to Wyandotte he was reelected mayor in 1868. He later served in the Kansas state legislature and was elected to congress in 1872. For additional biographical information, see United States Biographical Dictionary, Kansas Volume, pp. 20-21; Andreas and Cutler, History of the State of Kansas, p. 1236.
99. In his account of the Republican rally, the Quindaro correspondent of the Commercial Gazette wrote: "Gov. Root, spoke at considerable length, and made an able and well arranged argument in defense of the Republican party. His manner was self possessed and dignified, and he indulged in no low political slang, or vituperative abuse of his political opponents, and thus rendered his speech the more effective. One of my distinguished democratic neighbors remarked the next day, that the speeches on that occasion were not only a feast of reason, but a flow of soul, embodying so much that was instructive and exhibiting a candor and fairness that was truly refreshing." -- "Vag" to the editor, Quindaro, September 8, 1868, cited in Wyandotte Commercial Gazette, September 12, 1868.
100. In regard to Mayor Cobb's address, the Quindaro correspondent stated: "Col. Cobb confined his remaks entirely to local politics, and if all the people interested in the county, could have heard him, they would have been apprised of transactions of some of the county officials that would not have been very pleasant to the tax payers. -- He spoke with much fluency, and has added new laurels to his reputation as an orator, and a bold fearless man." -- Ibid.
101. In regard to Mrs. Nichols's statement concerning woman's suffrage the editor of the Wyandotte Commercial Gazette stated that he hoped "the friends of impartial suffrage, throughout the State, will consider this proposition, and if it is thought best to demand suffrage for the women on this question, act in concert so far as it is possible to do so." -- Ibid.
At the November general election in Wyandotte county, several women attempted to vote but were turned away. -- See ibid., November 7, 1868.
102. Vermont Phoenix, September 18, 1868.
103. The Republican state convention to nominate candidates for state offices was held on September 9, 1868, in Topeka. After much political maneuvering, James M. Harvey of Riley county was nominated for governor on the fifth ballot. For the proceedings of the Republican state convention, see Topeka Weekly Leader, September 10, 1868; Kansas Daily Tribune, September 11, 1868; Wyandotte Commercial Gazette, September 12, 1868.
The Democratic state convention had been held in Topeka on July 29, 1868, and George W. Glick of Atchison county had been nominated for governor. For the proceedings of the Democratic state convention, see Leavenworth Daily Conservative, July 31, 1868; Kansas State Record, Topeka, August 5, 1868.
104. George A. Crawford migrated to Kansas in 1857 and associated himself with the Free-State party. In 1861 he was elected governor. However, the Kansas supreme court declared his election illegal and Crawford never served as the state's chief executive. In 1868 Crawford was a candidate for the Republican party's gubernatorial nomination. Although a spirited contest resulted between him and Gov. Thomas Carney, the nomination went to James M. Harvey as a compromise candidate. For additional biographical information, see "George A. Crawford," KHC, v. 6 (1897-1900), pp. 237-248; United States Biographical Dictionary, Kansas Volume, pp. 490-497.
105. Sidney Clarke, land speculator and Republican politician, was elected to congress in 1864 and reelected in 1866 and 1868. He was defeated by David P. Lowe in 1870. For additional biographical information, see ibid., pp. 319-320.
106. Samuel J. Crawford, lawyer, soldier, and Indian fighter, was the youngest governor in the history of the state of Kansas. Elected governor in 1864, he served two terms before resigning in 1868 to take command of the 19th Kansas. For additional biographical information, see Mark A. Plummer, Frontier Governor: Samuel J. Crawford of Kansas (Lawrence, The University Press of Kansas, 1971).
107. Solon O. Thacher, newspaper publisher, attorney, and Republican politician, was elected judge of the fourth judicial district of Kansas in 1861. He was an avid supporter of woman's rights and had worked diligently for the passage of woman's rights provisions during the Wyandotte constitutional convention. For additional biographical information, see United States Biographical Dictionary, Kansas Volume, pp. 523-524; Henry Stuart, "Solon O. Thacher," KHC, v. 6 (1897-1900), pp. 206-219; Cordley, "Solon Otis Thacher," ibid., v. 5 (1891-1896), pp. 142-147.
108. Mrs. Nichols refers here to the marriage of her daughter, Birsha C. Carpenter, to George Franklin Davis of Cavendish, Vt., on June 21, 1868. Following the ceremony Birsha moved back to the East with her husband and three stepchildren. -- See Wyandotte Commercial Gazette, June 27, 1868; Margaret Gould Owens to the author, Cavendish, Vt., September 2, 1972.
109. Vermont Phoenix, October 16, 1868.
110. For a brief survey of the feminist movement during the Civil War, see Flexner, Century of Struggle: The Woman's Rights Movement in the United States, pp. 105-112. Also, see HWS, v. 2, pp. 1-90.