House Unpassed Legislation 1857, leave to withdraw, SC1/series 230, Petition of Sarah E. Wall

Petition subject: Equal elective franchise for women Original: http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:FHCL:11006380 Date of creation: (unknown) Petition location: Worcester Legislator, committee, or address that the petition was sent to: John B.D. Cogswell, Worcester; committee on the judiciary Selected signatures:Sarah E. Wall Actions taken on dates: 1857-02-04,1857-02-14,1857-02-17 Legislative action: Received in the House on February 4, 1857 and referred to the committee on the judiciary and on February 14, 1857, had leave to withdraw and accepted in the House on February 17, 1857 Total signatures: 1 Legislative action summary: Received, referred, leave to withdraw, accepted Female signatures: 1 Female only signatures: Yes Identifications of signatories: petitioner, [females] Prayer format was printed vs. manuscript: Manuscript Additional non-petition or unrelated documents available at archive: additional documents available Additional archivist notes: women's suffrage, [4 pages of text; To the Honorable Senate and House of Representatives of Massachusetts. Your petitioners believing that all true government desire their just powers from the consent of the governed, and that taxation without representation is inconsistent with the Republican theory, equally unjust and oppression in its results upon whatever sex or class imposed, respectfully prays you to adopt such measures as will eventually secure to woman the right of suffrage. In the general excitement now prevailing throughout the community, it will doubtless seem an absurdity to many of you, to press this unpopular subject upon the minds of the public, already distracted by so many contending issues but it is upon the causes of this excitement that your petitioner found her strongest argument for thus claiming your attention at this time. When banks and tariffs rule the hour, and political strife is but the index of the rise and fall of cotton, it is an unfavorable moment to urge its claims, compared with a period when the agitation of a great moral question permeates every stratum of individual thought, appealing alike to the conscience of man and woman, arousing her from the lethargy incident to his position to a consciousness of public wrongs, of which she can no longer be a neutral spectator, as they press nearer and nearer upon her own threshold. The indifference she exhibited toward the Carolinian slave warms into active sympathy when she sees her husband or son stricken down on the plains of Kansas, and she perceives the unity of that power which perpetuated both deeds. The impropriety of her meddling with politics is forgotten as she rushes forth instinctively, to mingle with political gatherings, when ruffian hands have laid low a senator who has won her esteem and admiration by the rare effusions of his high moral and intellectual attainments, and the glowing eloquence with which he has strewn with flowers, the thorny pathway of politics. The corruptions of politic, domestic duties, the delicate and sensitive nature of woman, and her acquiescence thus far are among the many objections raised against her admission to public life, all totally groundless, and destined like the cry of amalgamation in the earlier stages of the Anti Slavery cause, to perish with the breath of those who raise them. What are politics? They are the product of thought, bearing the impression of the minds who create them, becoming elevated in their moral tone in proportion as we become elevated by a purer morality, and a purer Christianity. They mould the pulpit, control the press, and hold in their mighty hands the destinies of nations, in which woman must share and suffer. Was it not that power which framed the Inquisition, invented the rack, tied Madame Roland to the scaffold, and hung Mary Dyer on Boston Commons. Is it not that power which now drenches the earth in the blood of her children and desecrates the very name of humanity, by baptizing in the name of Christ, unity, Freedom and Equality, the most stupendous wrong that ever disgraced heathen or pagan land that degrades woman to the life of the harem under the shadow of the Crescent, and sells her on the auction block beneath the stars and stripes of a Republic? If politics are corrupt, she suffers from the corruption, and she owes it to herself and the world to demand a reform, which she can do only after gaining a recognition of her existence in that body. It is degrading for her to go to the ballot box because of the drunkenness and vulgarity with which she must associate there, it is doubly so for her to submit to laws emanating from such vile sources. Public sentiment is very solicitous for her welfare when any question of public interest is at stake, but it has no sympathy to waste for the severer trials of her private life. It expresses no fear that she will suffer wither physically or morally, when her husband is carried home in a state of intoxication which the rowdyism of the bedroom will...