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NOTE: You may notice textual errors throughout this document, many of which have been left intact from the original text. Should you want to investigate the integrity of the original report, please refer to the original two printed volumes containing the official report of the proceedings and debates.

Adams
Allen
Anderson
Barnes
Bowdle
Boyer
Brandley
Button
Buys
Call
Cannon
Chidester
Christianson
Clark
Coray
Corfman
Crane
Creer
Cunningham
Cushing
Driver
Eichnor
Eldredge
Emery
Engberg
Evans, Weber
Evans, Utah
Farr
Francis
Gibbs
Goodwin
Green
Hammond
Hart
Haynes
Halliday
Heybourne
Hill
Howard

Prayer was offered by Rev. Stanley M. Hunter, of the Unitarian Society.

The journal of the twenty-fourth day's session was read and approved.

Petitions and memorials.

Mr. Creer presented a petition signed by John H. Hayes and fifty other citizens of Spanish Fork, praying for the submission to the voters of an article on prohibition.

Referred to the committee on manufacture and commerce.

Reports of standing committees.

The committee on lules reported as follows:

The committee on rules, to which was referred resolutions 61 C and 69 A, relative to amending standing rule 20, herewith report the same with recommendation that standing rule 20 be amended so as to read as follows:

RULE XX. The same rules shall be observed in committee of the whole as in the Convention, so far as the same are applicable. Motions to lie on the table or for the previous question are not applicable, and the ayes and noes shall not be taken. No member shall speak more than twice on the same question, nor more than five minutes at one time; but any member may yield his time or any part thereof to another. A motion to arise and report shall be in order at any stage, and shall be decided without any debate.

Resolution number 40 C, relative to announcements of committee meetings, is herewith returned with the recommendation that it be indefinitely postponed.    

VARIAN,

Acting Chairman.

Mr. EVANS (Weber). Mr. President, I am in favor of the motion to suspend the rules. I do not see any reason why we should not do it now. We will save considerable time. If any gentleman desires to speak more than five minutes, he can secure the time of some fellow-member and give him an opportunity to speak longer. I am in favor of it going into immediate effect.

The question being taken, the Convention divided and, by a vote of 76 ayes to 26 noes, the motion was agreed to.

The committee on public lands reported as follows:

Your committee on public lands, to whom was referred:

File number 58, introduced by Mr. Warrum, of Cache.

File number 80, introduced by Mr. Francis, of Morgan County.

File number 113, introduced by Mr. Creer, of Utah County.

Respectfully report that it has had said files and the propositions in them contained under consideration, and herewith report the said files back with the accompanying proposition as a substitute for said files, which proposition your committee recommend for insertion in the Constitution.

Respectfully submitted,

L. B. ADAMS, Chairman.

Mr. THURMAN. Mr. President, I move we resolve ourselves into committee of the whole, for the consideration of the article on elections and right of suffrage.

The motion was agreed to.

The Convention then resolved itself into committee of the whole, with Mr. Hart in the chair.

The CHAIRMAN. The first order of business for the consideration of the committee is the article on elections and rights of suffrage.
{420 - ELECTIONS AND SUFFRAGE}
Section 1 was read by the secretary as follows:

Section 1. The rights of citizens of the State of Utah to vote and hold office shall not be denied or abridged on account of sex. Both male and female citizens of this State shall equally enjoy all civil, political, and religious rights and privileges.

Every citizen of the United States not laboring under the disabilities named in this Constitution, of the age of twenty-one years and over, who shall have resided in the State one year, and in the county six months, and in the voting precinct ninety days, next preceding any election, shall be entitled to vote for all officers that now are or hereafter may be elected by the people, and upon all questions submitted to the electors at such election as herein otherwise provided.

Mr. Kiesel offered the following as a substitute for section 1:

All elections by the people shall be by ballot

Every male person of the age of twenty-one years or over, possessing the following qualifications, shall be entitled to vote at all general elections, and for all officers that now are or hereafter may be elected by the people, and upon all questions which may be submitted to the vote of the people:

First_He shall be a citizen of the United States.

Second_He shall have resided in this State one year immediately preceding the election at which he offers to vote, and in the town, county, or precinct, such time as may be prescribed by law; provided, first, that no person convicted of felony shall have the right to vote, unless he has been pardoned; provided, second, that nothing herein contained shall be construed to deprive any person of the right to vote who has such right at the adoption of this Constitution.

The CHAIRMAN. The question is on the adoption of the substitute offered by the gentleman from Weber for section 1.

Mr. ROBERTS. Mr. Chairman_     

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Roberts.

Mr. ROBERTS. I wish to make a few remarks_     

Mr. VARIAN. I submit, Mr. Chairman, a point of order on that. We cannot be put in the position of having five minutes before adopted a rule in the Convention, and then overturning that rule in the committee of the whole. We have no power to suspend the rules here. I suggest that the gentlemen who are willing to do so designate their time that they are willing to give to Mr. Roberts.

The CHAIRMAN. The point is well taken.

Mr. VARIAN. I will say here, I will yield my time.

Mr. RICHARDS. Mr. Chairman, I submit that anything may be done in committee of the whole by unanimous consent.

Mr. EVANS (Weber). Mr. Varian is objecting to it.

Mr. RICHARDS, Unanimous consent suspends the rules anywhere.

Mr. VARIAN. Mr. Chairman, since it is challenged, I will make the point right now. I say that the committee of the whole cannot suspend a standing rule of this Convention. I challenge the argument upon it. This Convention five minutes before has declared a standing rule of the Convention to meet the very exigencies of this case. Now, if gentlemen desire to have any particular gentleman's time extended, as provided by the standing rule, they can yield ten minutes, each one of them, to Mr. Roberts. and I will say here, if he has not time enough, I will yield ten minutes of my time, on the opposite side.

Mr. WHITNEY. Five minutes.

Mr. VARIAN. I am entitled to speak twice under the rule, five minutes each {421} time. If the gentlemen on his own side do not give him time enough, I will extend now the ten minutes of my time to him.

Mr. EVANS ( Weber.) Mr. Roberts does not desire to be interrupted. We will secure time for him. There are only a few on his side of the question. We do not want him interrupted in his remarks.

The CHAIRMAN. I suggest that those who wish to extend their time to Mr. Roberts shall designate now, so that he may begin with what time he may have, and that he may not be interrupted.

Mr. KEARNS. I will yield my time.

Mr. WARRUM. I will yield mine.

Mr. ROBERTS. Mr. Chairman, I have now all the time that I shall require. I will be overwhelmed with time.

Mr. WELLS. Mr. Chairman, I desire to ask how much time the gentleman has got now?

Mr. ROBERTS. All that I shall need at least.

Mr. KIESEL. Mr. Chairman, I will yield nine minutes of my time.

Mr. RYAN. Mr. Chairman, I will yield my time.

Mr. ROBERTS. Mr. Chairman, I appeal to you, sir, to protect me from this flood.

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Roberts has the floor and all the time he wishes.

Mr. ROBERTS. Mr. Chairman, I shall not detain the committee so long, perhaps as they anticipated had not the rules been changed this morning. I shall not detain the committee so long as I expected myself, this morning, for the reason that this question now before the committee has changed phases somewhat since last evening. I am informed that the gentlemen of the majority of this Convention_I mean our Republican friends, went into caucus last evening and almost solidly concluded to support the proposition in regard to elections and suffrage, as it has been found in the report of the majority. Friends who stood with me yesterday met me this morning and said that the fight was useless. That they did not feel to pursue it any farther. I can very well understand how these gentlemen perhaps are somewhat surprised that in the face of all the discouraging circumstances connected with this issue I should still persist in going on with a discussion. Leaving out, however, a speech to which I had devoted some time, upon the merits of woman suffrage, and contenting myself with an effort to discharge my duty, as I see it, by referring to the expediency of the movement, or the action that is now proposed to be taken on the question of woman suffrage, I waive my argument on the merits of the question, for the reason that it is useless to undertake to reason with those who have already determined to close their eyes and no matier what comes, they determine to follow a given course. I therefore, shall proceed upon that division of my speech that I had prepared on the theory that the adoption of woman suffrage is dangerous to the acquiring of statehoed [*note*]. Before doing so, however, it occurs to me that I have omitted something that I intended to say, perhaps in the way of self defense. That is, I was much disappointed with the report of the minority on this subject. I wish it distinctly understood that I had nothing to do with drafting that report, that I knew no word, nor line that was in it, until it was read here from the clerk's desk yesterday afternoon. Had I drawn that minority report, I should have placed it upon very different ground, or this question upon very different ground to what the gentlemen have placed it upon. The only suggestion that I did make to my friends upon that committee was ignored by them, and had it been placed in their report, it would have gone as I believe directly to the merits of this question.

And now, sir, coming back to some of the main thoughts that I have to offer upon this subject. I call the attention of the gentlemen in this committee to the gauntlet that the Constitution we are forming must run after we have spent our best endeavors upon it. We are placed in circumstances perhaps different to those in which any other people in any other of the numerous states that have applied for admission have ever found themselves in.

First, I call your attention to the fact that throughout our population in this Territory there is a general sentiment opposed to the material increase of the taxes of the people. I believe there is no gentleman upon the floor of this committee, but what, if he has given thought to the subject, is convinced that taxes will be more than double to the people, and this large increase in the taxation of the people in the new State will be the occasion of much opposition to the Constitution. This opposition will not come alone either from rural districts. You will find it in the centers of our population. You will find it in Salt Lake City, and you will find it in Ogden, and I suggest that they constitute a numerous class who will oppose this Constitution. Next I call your attention to the fact that there will be another class, and not an inconsiderable number either, who will oppose statehood upon the ground that they fear the adoption of prohibition and so far as I am able to test the sentiment of gentlemen upon this floor, there is a determination fixed that shall submit prohibition by a separate article to the vote of the people. Those whose interest require the opposition to this movement and who fear the adoption of prohibition, either by the Convention, or by the people, fear it as much when it is threatened to become a part of the Constitution by the action of the people as they do when it threatens to become part of the Constitution by the action of the Convention. They will exert their influence against its adoption.
{423}
Third. Those who were disgruntled over politics in this Territory_I see a smile pass over the

faces of some of my republican friends, and I am admonished by that circumstance, sir, to come to the conclusion that those gentlemen entertain the same opinion that I did when this proposition was first made to me, that about the only disgruntled politicians that there were in this Territory were of necessity democrats, who were generally defeated, and when the suggestion was made to me about this matter in defence of my democratic friends, disclaiming their being disgruntled, a prominent republican, in this Territory, one whose opinion is second perhaps in his party to no member in it, informed me that there were factions and divisions, that there were quarrels and heartburnings, over the spoils, within his own party, and that they were as much more or more disgruntled than democrats were.

Fourth. There are those who will oppose statehood because of the woman suffrage in it. I know how heroic gentlemen feel upon this subject. The conduct of the men of Wyoming has more than once been quoted to me upon this subject, and I am almost persuaded at this point to divert a little in order to speak of Wyoming; because Wyoming in the estimation of gentlemen who are supporting the doctrine in the face of everything to support woman suffrage, hold up constantly before us the image of Wyoming, and if there is any reflection upon the subject, then we have cited to us Colorado, and last of course, but not least, Kansas. I might ask gentlemen when they are setting before us a model after which to pattern, what is the matter with old Virginia? What is the matter with New York? What is the matter with Ohio, or Indiana? What is the matter with these states, whose institutions have stood the wear and tear of time for a hundred years? And though they have no woman suffrage, and though some of them have rejected it with scorn, still there are no clanking manacles there, no gyves upon the wrists of woman, nor are women oppressed or tyrannized over by the men of those states. We are told that Wyoming has had woman suffrage for twenty-five years, and it has worked admirably. Of course, when you take into account that influence which woman's power is to exercise over the political natures of men, or the political actions of men, you can certainly concede that after twenty-five years its civilizing influences would be felt. But I have an indistinct recollection, sufficient, however, to remember clearly the circumstances to which I refer, that upon this model state there is a dark blot of shame_the evidence of the savagery of the men who inhabit that state, and that the influence of woman was not able to restrain, and that is the wholesale murder of helpless and defenceless foreigners within her borders. But as a matter of fact, the experiment of woman suffrage in the state of Wyoming has not really been tried for twenty-five years. Oh, I grant you, it was given in 1870, but Wyoming, like ourselves, was in a territorial condition for twenty years of the time, and during that time, I suppose they elected justices of the peace, a delegate to Congress, and a local legislature, just as we used to do. There was no politics under those circumstances, they were a partially settled community.

There were none of the strict party strifes with its attendant heartburnings, as we find in sovereign states where men struggle for place and seek to gratify their ambition. Woman suffrage in Wyoming for these twenty years was very much like woman suffrage in Utah, previous to the time that Congress withdrew the privilege from the women of our Territory. And that is, it was very much like going to a relief society meeting, to going to the polls. And to return to the point that {424} I had under discussion, the class of men who will oppose this Constitution because of woman suffrage in it, and while the overwhelming majority in favor of this measure upon this floor would perhaps give reason to believe that there is an overwhelming majority in favor of it

in the Territory, it must not be lost sight of that gentlemen upon this floor are in peculiar circumstances, and under conditions that the people outside don't feel. And while I concede you that a majority of the people of this Territory are in favor of woman suffrage, there is nevertheless a large number who are not in favor of it, and are bitterly opposed to it, and will vote against this Constitution if it contains a provision granting it, and you may set it down and mark it, because it is true. Then, again, fifth, those Who will oppose the adoption of the Constitution for fear that old conditions will be revived. Indeed they believe that they are scarcely slumbering, and the number of that class, already large, will be materially increased if we shall adopt this measure. The report of that minority laid upon the table of the Convention yesterday and read for the first time to the Convention provoked adverse criticism. Gentlemen for whom I have the highest respect told me in moving language how it made their blood boil when it was read, because of the imputation upon the people of Utah that they were not honest in the action that they had taken. I share with them to some extent the feeling against such imputation; I, too, think it is rather hard, after giving so many evidences of loyalty and consistency to the people of this Territory and to this nation of our sincerity now to have a doubt cast upon it. But our indignation, whether the blood boils or only simmers, does not change a fact. It is very discouraging when you cannot convince people that you are honest and that you are sincere and your motives good, and yet I have learned by a rather trying experience that you cannot do it. Why, the house had an exhibition of it here yesterday, and a few days ago. I tried to convince the majority of this committee on elections and suffrage that those of us who did not see eye to eye with them, were acting in good faith, but we failed absolutely to convince them of that, and while it is trying to one's patience, the fact still remains, and so it is in this Territory. There is a large class of people_and you, gentlemen, may as well look that fact squarely in the face_who do not believe the sincerity of this movement, and while I regret with you, my regrets do not remove that fact. The class is there and we will have to take that into account when we are computing the chances of our Constitution passing. Perhaps their faith is not so much lacking in the people as it is that they fear the dominant church organization in this Territory. I grant you they have no grounds for fearing it; I tried to persuade them so. In public and in private I have told them again and again that they found the Mormon people when they were opposed to them steady and consistent opponents, and now that they stand by their side, as allies, they will find them equally consistent and firm, but, nevertheless, the explanation and the argument, they still refuse to be comforted, and hence I set these numbers down as among those who will be arrayed against statehood for Utah, and when you combine them all I confess that in my mind the array is formidable. But the end is not yet even. If your Constitution shall be fortunate enough to be ratified by a good round majority of the citizens of Utah, it still has to go to Washington. We are confronted to begin with in that source with the fact of irregularity in the organization of this Convention, and for my own part I believe it will be questioned, and I believe that there is ground for questioning, not only the regularity of our conduct in the organization {425} of this Convention in its early days, but the very gentleman who has the high honor of presiding over it, may some day be called upon for his credentials.

Again, there is another proposition that is whispered within the circles of the Convention and that finds advocates, and I doubt not from the doctrine of carrying things without consideration that has been manifested upon this floor, that it will prevail_and that is to so construct the ordinance that shall provide for the ratification of this Constitution and for the election of State officers, for

which it shall provide, to permit the women of this Territory at that election to cast their votes on this issue. If it is done, I believe it will be done in defiance of all precedent upon this subject. I shall be instructed if gentlemen will point where in the history of England or in the history of the United States, in event of extending the franchise to any given class, this class are permitted to vote upon whether the extension shall be given or no. With some attention I have gone over that ground, and from the days when the barons met King John in the pleasant meadows of England and demanded enfranchisement, until now, the custom is that those already enfranchised shall say whether or no the franchise shall be extended. Now, sir, if there is any nook or corner of history upon this subject that has escaped my attention, I shall be glad as before remarked to see it. There is another factor to be considered, when our Constitution goes to Washington and that is, sir, that already the east is afraid of the silver question. It matters, not, I presume which political party in this Territory shall triumph, it is a foregone conclusion that we are so united upon the proposition that they will be in favor of free silver at a ratio of sixteen to one_no nonsense about it, and no waiting for the consent of England or any other foreign power. This is a question in which not only the executive will be interested, but it is also a question that the whole east will oppose.

Again, while our friends here, referring to the non-Mormon inhabitants of this Territory, know the people of the Territory, know the struggles of the past and the bitterness of its contentions, I believe that our local friends on that side of the house are prepared to deal more justly by the people of Utah than the same class of people abroad. It is not yet accepted abroad that the people of Utah are acting in good faith in this movement, and it will not be difficult to arouse a sentiment that shall demand the postponement of statehood for Utah. I ask you, gentlemen, to put aside your prejudices and look straight into the face of these propositions, for they are ominous of disaster to your work. And it will be easy under all the circumstances for the executive to find justification that will satisfy him and the country in refusing to issue his proclamation that shall grant to us our highest aspirations. I admire the heroic conduct, I rather like the doctrine that right is right despite the consequences. A proposition of that kind is very apt to appeal to a man of my temperament, and I think, without boasting, I may say that it has been the star that I have followed so far in my career. When I contemplate the work of this Convention, I look back over the past, call to mind the many efforts that have been made by the people of this Territory for the attainment of the object for which we are now working. They have struggled time and time for to get it, and for the first time in the history of our Territory a Constitutional Convention has assembled under the authority of an enactment of Congress. This, in my mind, is the golden opportunity for the Territory of Utah. If this good time shall pass, if our efforts shall now be {426} defeated, God knows only when the opportunity will come again.

Here, I shall digress far enough to address myself to the womanhood of this State or proposed State. I know my voice cannot reach all the women of this Territory, but they have at least representatives upon this floor in attendance upon this committee, and I shall take the liberty of saying that there is a supreme opportunity before them. I invite their attention to this array of difficulties which confronts the attainment of our statehood, and if I am not altogether mistaken in my conceptions of these difficulties, if the women of this Territory can see that the enfranchisement of them now, the persistence of doing it, will endanger the attainment of our hopes, it will be a movement worthy of the women of this State, if they were willing to petition

this honorable body of men not to attempt the enfranchisement of women, if in their judgment it would endanger statehood itself. It is a sacrifice that I believe the women of this Territory are capable of making. Of course, I shall not urge it. I would not so much as ask it. It would be vain to do so. But, nevertheless, I believe it would be wise and patriotic to do it. Gentlemen are determined to run all the risks, however, of obtaining statehood for the reason that they consider themselves under pledges to grant it, and if I were to judge of the opinions of gentlemen by what they have said concerning this subject and the earnestness with which they have said it, I should be forced to the conclusion that the one virtue_the sum of all excellence, was the keeping of party pledges. I admire gentlemen who regard themselves bound by their pledges. It is an admirable trait of character worthy of emulation and of praise. But I wish to call the attention of gentlemen to the circumstances under which those pledges were made. Are you aware that woman's suffrage has never been discussed in this Territory upon its merits? Away back in the old days when woman's suffrage was first given to the women of this Territory, do you know how it came about? Why, gentlemen, it was granted in the main in answer to a challenge or banter that was thrown down, in regard to it. It was said by a portion of our citizens who were opposed to existing institutions in this Territory that if the franchise was only bestowed upon woman she would vote to destroy those institutions. In that spirit it was accepted by the dominant party in this Territory and woman was enfranchised. It did not turn out, however, in its results as was predicted by those who made the challenge, and instead of weakening the dominant party the discovery was made that its strength was just doubled or more than doubled.

Agitations were set on foot which resulted ultimately in the withdrawal of the privilege from the women by act of Congress. The matter laid in abeyance until a republican convention met under the new circumstances in which we have been placed. I refer to those changed conditions brought about by division on party lines, and each party became a rival for the favor of the people. Our republican friends, true to their interests, concluded to make an appeal to the people and seek to win their favor by favoring this proposition, but also following, not designedly, but acting as I believe purely from instinct, which comes from imbibing their doctrines, they managed to adopt a platform that could mean something or nothing according as their convenience or their interest might seem to dictate. Shortly after the action of that convention, a democratic convention assembled and they acted no better than the republicans did, for the reason, notwithstanding there had been no anterior discussion or agitation of the question, but believing that they could take the ground from under the feet of their political opponents, they go to work {427} and make an emphatic declaration binding the democratic party to sustain that doctrine; notwithstanding the fact that if there is an anti-suffrage party in the United States, it is the democratic party. This is what they gave them. And now they come into this Constitutional Convention, where men ought to raise mountain high above party polities, and above party expediency, and take into consideration the good of the entire people of our Territory. They undertake to say that those ill- considered party planks of platforms so binds them down to follow a course which puts in danger statehood itself. The cry is, “Be true to your party, be true to your party pledges.” And men are acting upon this floor against their conscience, as to the merits of woman suffrage, in order to uphold party consistency, and shrinking like cowards from the responsbility of raising above party consideration and doing an act that shall insure the safety of the scheme of statehood. For one, I proclaim it to you that I read my duty as being something higher than persevering in the support of ill considered action for political effect. And as stated in a paper handed me just as I

rose to my feet, party platforms, gentlemen, are like the shifting clouds of the summer day, and may be wafted where they may_shifting constantly, but your Constitution is more in the nature of everlasting hills; and while it is true, sir, that in the light of eternity even the mountains are but shifting clouds, it nevertheless remains true that they are more staple than are the clouds of a summer day.

Gentlemen, I appeal to you to stand by your party pledges. My appeal to you is to do your duty in first securing statehood for the people of Utah, and then let these questions take what course they may after that. Vote woman's suffrage up or down afterwards, I care not, although I have no sympathy with the arguments by which that doctrine is supported. Do not misunderstand me. I shall vote and work for the Constitution that this Convention shall frame. Even though it shall contain an article granting woman's suffrage, it will make no difference with my zeal, but if there is anybody that will listen to me after I get through this harangue, and with this Convention_if there is any party that will permit me to speak from its platform, you will find me speaking in favor of statehood for Utah, though it should include both woman's suffrage and prohibition. In fact, you can put almost anything in it that you please, but I shall advocate statehood for the people of this Territory, who are worthy of it and who are deserving.

I presume that my party friends especially will come to the conclusion that I have made a mess of it. I have certainly succeeded, I warrant it, in displeasing them, and I am equally conscious of the fact that I have not pleased the republicans. And perhaps, what is more serious, I have offended my constituency, for both by admonition and by letter, have they undertaken to change me on this issue. I shall not, however, fear to oppose my constituency. They are preparing to resolute against my conduct, but after the first flush of displeasure shall have passed away, the people among whom my boyhood and manhood were spent will not impute to me improper motives. They will know, if nobody else knows, that however faulty in my judgment I may be, there is a deep conviction in my heart that the line of duty demanded that I should take this ground, that that is my duty as I conceived it. Perhaps there is another thing that is distressing and that is, for a number of years I have been under the displeasure of many of our prominent ladies. This does not end it, and that is a circumstance not to be thought lightly of, although gentlemen smile. By the way, a few days ago, you remember the invasion we had in the hall on the part of the good {428} ladies interested in this question. One of them, divining that in all probability I would take a stand against their interest, said she did not think they had any occasion to fear me. I conceded it. I hope they never will have occasion to fear me. I should regret it if they did. Then, again, she went on to tell me that even if in this Convention suffrage should be defeated, it would come sometime, and they were telling gentlemen who were lending their influence to the cause, that they sometime would be able to reward them. [Laughter.]

Well, I did not have to read between the lines to catch the full meaning of that, because if they could reward their friends, they could equally punish their enemies. The remark had but little effect upon me. I have no political aspirations. I am a candidate for no party favor. In my little political sky there are no stars that can be blotted out. I am equally removed, therefore, from the hope and fear, and I am prepared to take and stand upon this question as I think I see it affects the interests of the people of this Territory.

And even my kind party friends, gentlemen, for whom I entertain the very highest regard, were kind enough to intimate that they would like to save me from going into a hole. They are of the opinion that I should dig deep my political grave, and I presume that I have dug it deep enough to gratify even them. So you will observe that I stand in the midst of all this ruin single handed and alone. Alone I may be, but I would not exchange my free thought for a throne. [Applause.] And as for my grave, the grave has no terrors when the fear of death is gone. So that I am in the position of saying, “Oh, grave where is thy victory, oh, death where is thy sting?” But, now, gentlemen, in conclusion, let me say, speaking from the midst of all this debris, to which I have called your attention, there is one thing that you cannot do_that the good women of this Territory cannot do, that my offended constituents cannot do. They cannot say that I played the part of a demagogue or that, like a scurvy politician, I pretended that which I could not see. All considerations of interest drew me in the opposite direction to the course I have traveled. By even confessing conversions to the arguments and to the judgments of my fellow democrats, I could have avoided the friction between them and myself. I love the approbation of my friends. I shrink from conflicts only where I think duty calls me to meet them. If I had my political aspirations, every consideration of interest would have required me to accept and adopt this idea of suffrage. I could have escaped, by taking the opposite course, the offense of my constituents, and my past, like yours, would have laid in pleasant places. I observe some of the memorials offered here by the good ladies who would now aid in obtaining this privilege for them. So that I could have become a candidate for immortality and perhaps the laurel leaves would have encircled my immortal brow as they will yours, but my sense of duty, as I see it, called upon me to take an opposite course, and I have taken it and am prepared to meet all the consequences attendant thereupon. One word of caution to gentlemen of this Convention. While you are stretching out your hands for the emblem of immortality offered you, while you are seeking to build monuments for this Convention by taking this question up and acting favorably upon it, let me admonish you that you do not mistake your occupation and dig a grave for statehood instead of attaining the things you desire.

Mr. Chairman, I certainly am moved with a sense of gratitude to this Convention {429} and to the gentlemen who have kindly extended to me their time, and I also thank you with all my heart for the patience with which you have listened to me. [Applause.]

Mr. RICKS. Mr. Chairman, I move that the committee now arise and report progress.

The motion was agreed to.

The committee then rose and reported as follows:

Your committee of the whole, having had under consideration the article on elections and rights of suffrage, beg leave to report progress, and ask leave to sit again.

The report was adopted.

After recess.

Mr. SQUIRES. Mr. President, I move that we now resolve ourselves into committee of the whole to consider the article on elections and rights of suffrage.

The motion was agreed to and the Convention resolved itself into committee of the whole, with Mr. Hart in the chair.

COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE.

Mr. CHIDESTER. Mr. Chairman and gentlemen of the committee, I do not deem it necessary to enter into a full discussion of this question now, for the reason that I believe that the question has been fully settled in the hearts and minds of the people. Notwithstanding the statements that have been made this morning, I believe that the question has been thoroughly ventilated, and that the people have virtually passed upon it. I believe when the platforms were adopted by the two political parties that the people knew upon what platform their candidates stood. I believe that they are an intelligent people, and as a matter of course, canvassed thoroughly the ground over which they were traveling. And there is this to consider, that since this Convention has been convened here, numerous memorials and petitions have been sent here by ladies from all over the country, asking this body to incorporate in the Constitution this article that would give them equal rights with men, not only to vote, but to hold office and enjoy all the rights that men enjoy. What has been the result? There has been no remonstrance sent in here from any source. I say no, that nothing has been done in the way of remonstrance, except the report of the minority of the committee on elections and rights of suffrage. That is the only thing that has come before this Convention in the way of a remonstrance, in the way of placing that in the Constitution. It has been stated here this morning that the committee who had that matter in charge had dealt unfairly with the minority of that committee. I wish, Mr. Chairman, to correct it, and I wish to say that it is absolutely untrue; that never was a minority in any committee more fairly dealt with than the minority of that committee, and I say it for this reason, that it was understood from the beginning that there would be some opponents to this measure, and for that reason we agreed to take up that subject on the second day that we met. According to this agreement on the second day that we met, this article was taken up. It was read over, it was talked about, and every member of that committee had perfect freedom to discuss it from that time until we made our report, and the minority determined in the beginning of our sitting that they would make a minority report. The matter, however, was left open for discussion, that the minority might have a chance to discuss it whenever they pleased and to bring out any new points that they might run across. The matter was talked about considerably during our session and the vote remained the same, and towards the last it began to appear to the majority of the committee that it was time that final action should be made upon that, {430} so far as the committee was concerned. The minority had due notice of this, and upon Thursday, I think it was, prior to the handing in of this report, the committee instructed its chairman that he should prepare a report. It was understood that that report should be immediately filed for action by this Convention or the committee of the whole. In accordance with that, the chairman prepared the report and presented it to the committee for its

actions. A majority of that committee approved that. The minority had given their views upon it and they asked for time. We wished to file that on Saturday. They asked for time until Monday that they might prepare a minority report, but the majority of the committee said by a vote that we should present that on Saturday at 2 o'clock, and that we would not urge any action on it until Monday or Tuesday, in order that they might have time to prepare their minority report. When that report was signed by the majority, the question was asked if any unfairness had been shown and the minority expressed themselves as being perfectly satisfied with the action of the majority and said that they had been well treated and had good feelings in regard to it.

Now, then, from that time to this it has been charged, and especially this unfairness, that the majority had acted very arrogantly and had not shown the minority the proper respect that they should. It is this that I wish to refute. I wish to say also, that I differ with the gentleman who so ably defended his cause here this morning. The best of men differ in opinions and I am willing to concede that he is as honest in his convictions as I am in mine, but I have this to say that when the charges are made, as made in that minority report, that the people are not sincere in
what they are doing, I say that it is unfair, and I say that it is not true. The history of the people of Utah does not bear that out. And it is said that if we adopt this measure in this Constitution it will take from us many thousand votes. I say, gentlemen, that in my opinion it will not take one vote away from that Constitution that would not be taken if it was submitted as a separate article. And I have more to say in regard to that, and it is this: That that matter seemed to have been thoroughly canvassed before it was adopted in the platforms of these two parties, and then was the time for that able speech that was made here this morning. But I say that to bring it in now is entirely too late. Every man that was elected here, comes in here pledged, and I care not who says to the contrary. That platform was handed to me and upon that platform I stood. Upon that platform I went to the people. I went to them honestly with it. I had no voice in that Convention, but I said to the chairman that although our county would not be represented, as I was authorized to speak for them, that we would adopt the platform that they adopted and we would endeavor to stand by it. I considered it my duty and it was my duty to appear in that convention and make my fight there. There was the place for me to fight. There was the place for me to oppose this measure; not after I had accepted the nomination on this platform and went to the people and said to them that I had accepted this and if they would elect me that I would labor for those rights and then come here and oppose it. That is not as I understand the matter. I have no right to do it, and I contend that no other man has any right to do it. My friends could do it if they liked, but speaking from a reasonable standpoint, I say they have no right to do it. The reason we will not lose any votes is this, because it is a moral certainty that if this is submitted as a separate proposition, it will become a part of the Constitution. It is a certainty, and I do not believe that there is any man in this Convention {431} who will doubt it; then, where is the man that would vote for the Constitution if this was submitted in a separate article that would vote against it in the article itself? It seems unreasonable to me, because if they know that this is going to become a part of the Constitution, whether it is submitted separately or whether it is engrafted in, makes no difference. It is an assured fact that it will be a part of the Constitution, and if they will vote against it at one time, they will vote against it at another.

And it seems to me that in the position that we stand, we have only one duty to perform. If there is any mistake made, it is not made now by doing that which we have pledged ourselves to do. It

is not by doing what the party expects us to do, but if there has been any mistake made, it was made at the time that these platforms were adopted. And who is to blame? Who made the platforms? There are gentlemen in this house who assisted in making these platforms, I did not help to do it. If I had been there, I might have acted the same as the rest. I am not here to discuss that proposition: I am here to defend the action of the committee over which I had the honor to preside. When we went into that committee room as a committee, what was expected of us? Being elected as we were upon the platform given us, we were expected to report a bill in conformity with those platforms. That was what was expected, and should we have failed to do it, indeed the people would have cried out against us. We would have been called traitors, as well we might have been.

Now, then, Mr. Chairman, I deem it as a settled question and when I arose I did not expect to occupy as much time as I have done, but this is the way I look at the matter and there are no grounds for the minority to make these charges against the majority of the committee, for the reason that we endeavored to act in all fairness toward them, and it was so expressed by them that they had been treated fairly, and we had no idea that they entertained any different opinion until we arrived in here. It is true we insisted that this matter should not be laid aside and any other matter take precedence; that it should be protected just the same as any other bill.

Thanking you for your attention, I will give way.

Mr. ANDERSON. Mr. President, and gentlemen of the Convention, I am in favor of the proposition granting equal suffrage to women, not because I am actuated by any feeling of sentiment or gallantry toward the fair sex, but because I think the principles of justice demand it. it embraces the principles of human rights and liberties and that great fundamental principle that there shall be no taxation without representation, the violation of which was one of the chief causes of the revolutionary war. Mankind have advanced in civilization in the same ratio that women have been accorded liberty and equal rights. Who is more vitally interested in the laws of our country than a mother, and who will endeavor more than she to establish a good government and to elect capable and worthy officers to administer the laws thereof? She is constantly working, planning and even praying for the welfare of her children and country, and should have the right of assisting to mould the policies of the government by casting her ballot as a protection to herself and children. Is not a sister or a wife as greatly interested in good government as a brother or a husband, and do they not suffer fully as much from the effects of bad laws and the acts of corrupt officials? If so, why should they not have a voice equally with the men in making the laws and electing the officials. I say, gentlemen, there can be no just reason for denying them that right or privilege. If you only con sider {432} the subject, your own observation will tell you that women are freer from degrading habits and vices than men, and if you examine the statistics of crime, you will find the men greatly outnumber the women in that dark calendar, which is another proof that women are morally superior to men and should have an equal voice with them in making the laws and in electing the officers to administer the same. Some object to giving women the right of suffrage because they think it will degrade her to bring her in contact with the mire of politics, but I hold there should be no mire in politics. And if there is, by her moral superiority, she will assist in purifying and raising them out of the mire, and be the means of stimulating the men to take more interest in the purity of politics and the good order of elections;

for if women attend the primaries and vote at elections, their fathers, sons, husbands, and brothers will take an active interest in seeing that the primaries and elections are held in suitable and respectable places, and that good order prevails, and would not permit any rowdyism, drunkenness, etc., which would be a further proof of the beneficial results of woman suffrage. I can remember the time when women had the right of franchise in this Territory, and elections were so conducted that women could attend them with the same degree of respect and order as if they were going to the postoffice or to church, and I also remember they voted as a rule for good government and good officers. In this age of advancement and dissemination of knowledge, women read the papers and are as well posted on current events and the needs of mankind as men. Woman should be man's co-laborer in governmental affairs as she is in the home_she is his superior in morality, his equal in mental abilities, and a competitor in the professions. If women aspire to positions they are not capable of filling it is very unlikely they would receive the nomination or be elected to the same, as such matters would be directed by reason and consistency.

As an example of the success of woman's suffrage I refer you to the state of Wyoming, where it has been tried for the last twenty-five years and has completely vindicated the fact that it is one step higher in the advancement and progress of mankind. It has been ridiculed, misrepresented and slandered in every possible way by its enemies, but it has risen triumphant and now numbers among its supporters many of those who formerly opposed it. When the question arose of submitting the question of woman's suffrage as a separate article in the Wyoming constitution, the delegates almost as a unit protested against such injustice and paid the very highest tribute to the women of Wyoming and to their conscientious and judicious use of the ballot for the twenty years they had the privilege of using it, and to the beneficial results of equal suffrage and its elevating influence at elections; Governor Warren, of Wyoming, and Governor Humphries, of Kansas, have also borne record of the beneficial results of woman's suffrage.

A delegate of the Wyoming constitutional convention, Mr. Campbell, said that when he came to Wyoming he was very much prejudiced against woman's suffrage, on account of having heard so many villifying statements concerning the bad effects of the same, but he said he had found by experience that those statements were false, and that equal suffrage had borne good results on every hand.

If woman's suffrage has produced such good results in Wyoming, it will accomplish the same thing in Utah, and would produce even greater results in New York, and the thickly populated eastern states where it is said politics are more corrupt. For if woman were given the right to cast her ballot there would be less fraud, drunkenness and {433} rowdyism at elections, for the very best interests and instincts of men would be appealed to for the accomplishment of such a result. Woman's conscience is more sensitive and her morality superior to that of man. There is no crime committed but what more men are guilty than women, and even in the case of downfallen women there are many more men guilty of the same vice, and if the women had the right of ballot they would use it in such a manner as to protect their unfortunate sisters, and elevate them to a higher morality and would be the means of the people rising to a higher standard.

It is held by some that to incorporate the resolution granting suffrage to women in the

Constitution would endanger its ratification, but I claim that to be a mistake. Woman's suffrage will be one of the strongest features in the Constitution because it is right and embraces those life-endearing principles of liberty and justice, and I for one would rather see the Constitution defeated than to have it accepted and deny the right of franchise to one-half the citizens of the new State. We all come here pledged to that principle, as both political parties of which we are members have resolutions in their platforms declaring unequivocally in favor of granting suffrage to women; and if we do not do so, we will prove false to the trust and confidence reposed in us by the people and traitors to the cause of liberty, and our names will go down in future history covered with perfidy and dishonor and no reasoning of our own would avert it.

I trust we will not bring dishonor upon ourselves by betraying the sacred confidence reposed in us by the people. I hold that it is the duty of every member who is opposed to woman's suffrage to resign, for he cannot consistently pursue any other honorable course, as we are all pledged to support it by our party platforms.

Millions of ignorant slaves have been admitted to the right of suffrage, and thousands of ignorant foreigners are admitted yearly, and yet why hesitate to grant our mothers, our wives and our sisters the rights of suffrage, most of whom are native born, many are property owners and well educated, and all are most vitally interested in the welfare of the government, in the principles of liberty and the perpetuation of the same.

It would be just as consistent and just as fair to submit in a separate article to the people the right to hold property and the right of suffrage for male citizens.

I am opposed to submitting woman's suffrage in a separate article to the people, because I am unwilling to give the saloon men, liquor dealers, gamblers, and bad element of society, who think that a good vote will injure them, the opportunity of defeating it by corrupt influences and the fraudulent use of money, for if such influences were used many might be induced to vote against it, who would otherwise favor it. We are charged by the gentleman from Davis of cowardice because we are standing upon our convictions and the faithful promises we have made, which I denounce as ungentlemanly.

It should need no argument to convince us of the right and justice of granting the women the right of the elective franchise or of the beneficial results that will accrue therefrom.

In conclusion I will say let us be true to ourselves, and not be so intolerant and bigoted in our opinions as to deny the rights we now possess to others equally entitled to them according to every principle of justice, and I earnestly hope that this section granting women equal suffrage with men will be adopted and incorporated in our Constitution, and that we will sustain the same by a unanimous vote and thus show to the world that Utah is in the advance march of progress and civilization, {434} and in those life-endearing principles of liberty and justice.

Mr. THURMAN. Mr. Chairman, were it not, sir, for the fact that I have a pride in the position that I take upon this question, I would not ask the indulgence of this committee to hear what I have to say. I believe that absolute and unconditional suffrage for woman equal with man is a

foregone conclusion in this Convention, unless it may be said that oratory and eloquence must take a stronger hold upon the minds and hearts of men than cold logic and keen sense of justice and right. When it comes to oratory and eloquence, I believe that this Convention concedes that my friend of Davis is entitled to the honors. We cannot hope to meet him upon that ground, but we are here founding a state. We are laying the foundations of a temple of liberty and we are at this very hour, Mr. Chairman, discussing the question to what extent we will be found seeking to widen the circle of human liberty, and abolishing those distinctions which have no foundation, except in mere sentimental ideas of men. It is a remarkable condition that confronts us today in this Convention, when the leader, if I may choose to call him, of the opposition_when the most eloquent man in this Convention, (and I say it with deference to all my colleagues and friends on this floor,) can stand up here and say that he will not indulge in a discussion of the merits but he proposes to confine himself to the question of expediencies only. We are here to discuss the merits of this question. We are here to discuss a question of right, the question of justice, and if we can, that our side will throw expediencies to the dogs. God forbid, Mr. Chairman, that I should ever be found in a constitutional convention discussing the most important question perhaps that will come before us, and place my entire argument upon the grounds of mere expediencies only, and leave the question of right and justice out of the discussion. [Applause.] But where are the grounds assigned as to why it is inexpedient to give women the suffrage?

I am willing to meet the question even upon the ground of expediencies. The honorable gentleman from Davis County, in the course of his remarks this morning, laid down several propositions on the question of expediency. First and possibly foremost, woman's suffrage is dangerous to statehood. There is an answer to that outside of anything that he touched upon in the discussion. When this Constitution shall have been submitted to the people next November, for their ratification or rejection, upon what grounds have we the right to believe that the people of the Territory of Utah will adopt a constitution when every man in the Convention has proved, derelict in his duty, and has treated as a thing not to be considered the very foundation upon which they were elected to the positions that they hold? The people might as well say to us next November, “We sent you to the Convention to frame a Constitution and to place in it, as a fundamental principle, that every American citizen without regard to sex should have a voice in administering the government that you are to form; you have treated with contempt_you have ignored this first fundamental request, and you have given us something else in the place of that that we asked you to give, and now you present it to us and ask us to adopt it.” Do you think they would adopt it? And more than that, what sort of confidence would they have in the future in either the democratic or the republican party? Here we are trying to teach people something about politics. We are trying to cut loose from the old lines and engage upon the new and teach one another and ourselves that there is a beauty in what is called American politics. Upon this very threshold of our work, the first thing {435} we are found doing, is to forget the pit from whence we were dug and the stone from whence we were hewn, and send to the dogs the fundamental proposition upon which every man was elected to this Convention.

Now, Mr. Chairman, I will read the plank in the democratic platform. While I think it means the same thing as the plank in the republican platform, I read this, because it is a little more pronounced and more emphatic. I will read what the honorable gentleman from Davis County has seen fit to criticise as not having been in good faith. If I may be permitted, I will say that I

take pride in the fact that this plank in the platform was drafted by myself, in the committee on resolutions, but I am entitled to no credit on that account, for every member in that committee was ready and willing and I do not know but what he had a draft in his pocket, and all the difference between them and me is that I happened to be lying in wait and I got the floor first.

(Reads:)

The Democrats of Utah are unequivocally in favor of woman's suffrage and the political rights and privileges of women equal with those of men, including eligibility to office.

We demand that such guarantees shall be provided in the Constitution of the State of Utah as will secure to the women of Utah these inestimable rights.

as suggested by the honorable chairman of the committee on elections, no voice has been heard in opposition to it except the voice of this minority, and they put it upon the grounds that it will interfere with statehood. Now, I am coming squarely to the point. It is the first time that I have had occasion for years to recur to old conditions, but I think here is the place for it. I doubt if there is any serious and considerable number of what are called anti-Mormon element in Utah who believe that there is any danger in this proposition. I want to remind them of the fact, if there be, that should the time even come that there will be any attempt on the part of anyone to recur to these conditions, you will find the men here who are fighting for equal rights and political privileges will be the men who will stand up and say, “Hands off; you are treading on holy ground.” I have this confidence in the Mormon Church, that if political parties will let them alone, they will let political parties alone. [Applause.]

Now, another answer to the proposition as to whether there are a few who feel a dread as to the possibilities of recurring to old conditions, let me say this, what would those few think_how would they feel if the Mormon side of this question should commence to oppose an influx of outside population? What would they say if there was an organized effort on the part of the church and its people to keep out a population anti-Mormon? But are they doing it? Is the church doing that, gentlemen'? Let us be fair, let us be just, in our thoughts concerning conditions as they are and conditions as they have been. On the other hand, we find what is called here the Utah Company, organized for the purpose of obtaining all the capital possible, making all the developments possible, in order to introduce and bring in a population from the outside, which must of necessity be an anti-Mormon population. We find in that company, President Wilford Woodruff, and George Q. Cannon, and I do not know but Joseph F. Smith. At any rate it is a Mormon company, acting in good faith for the purpose of bringing in an anti-Mormon population. Then, I say, if there are those who believe that anything should not be done here which might possibly increase the Mormon vote, they are more intolerant than the church, for the church is thinking of nothing of that kind. So, gentlemen, I take it that there is nothing in that fear, in fact, my friend on my right here (Mr. Roberts), said this morning that the fear was utterly unfounded. What, then, must we think of a proposition like this. Here were are founding a state. Here we are determining at this very hour the question whether all the people who are American citizens and of requisite age should be entitled to participate in the affairs of government. We are determining that very question. And men stand up here and say, not because it is right, but because a few men have a groundless fear, “we are opposed to it.” I say that is not a proper ground for opposing the insertion into this Constitution of the fundamental principle such as is under discussion at the present time. And when you meet the question as to whether statehood will be affected or interfered with, you have met all that there was in the argument of my friend from Davis (Mr. Roberts), {437} that is all. Trace it as you will from beginning to end, you will find nothing that any attempt should be made to meet on this floor, except the possibility that it might interfere with statehood, and he says there is a fear of increased taxes, and there is a fear of an article on prohibition, and there is a fear that women will have the rights of suffrage, and these are the propositions. The question of right and justice is absolutely left out from the beginning to the end, and the only purpose is to satisfy and placate a few men, who it is imagined will have fears on the subject; there is no sort of proof or demonstration that there are any such men. Why have they not come in here and made themselves heard, by petitions and remonstrance. It has been open for every citizen and every body of citizens to say all that they might have to say upon

this subject.

There is just one thing in conclusion, which I wish to say, Mr. Chairman. I am in favor of woman's suffrage for for the reasons assigned in the minority report against it. The only reason it assigns is that women are better than men. That is all. It says, “We do not seek to dispute in the least the argument that in all intellectual attributes and attainments, women are qualified to vote as intelligently as men, except that women are better than men.” After having stated that, then the proposition to exclude the best element in the commonwealth_that which the minority says is the best, is to be excluded, because it is good. I believe they are. I believe it will increase the better vote. I will tell you why. The best vote in any commonwealth is the votes of heads of families_married men_the substantial citizens of the country_they are not a floating element, they are not a transient element; they are not the riff raff of society. They are the heads of families and understand its responsibilities, and the responsibilities of the commonwealth.
It has been said that a woman will vote as her husband does; that is one of the things that I like in the proposition. If the heads of the families constitute the best vote in the commonwealth and that vote can be doubled by giving their wives the right to vote, we are only doubling the vote of the best element in the commonwealth, and is it not more calculated to insure good government? It seems to me, Mr. Chairman, it is a plain proposition. I have already occupied more time than I intended to, and I thank the committee for its indulgence.

MR. RICHARDS. Mr. Chairman, being a firm believer in that declaration of our bill of rights which says that “frequent recurrence to fundamental principles is essential to the security of individual right and the perpetuity of free government,” I desire to call the attention of the committee to some of the fundamental principles which should govern us in determining the great question of suffrage for our new State. Preliminary to the argument that I shall offer, it is important to fully appreciate the extent of our powers in relation to the question. Hence we will first consider the powers of a constitutional convention in relation to the elective franchise.

A constitutional convention, such as we are now holding, has its sphere largely determined by the overshadowing Constitution of the United States, which we have already adopted as a condition precedent to framing a Constitution for the prospective State of Utah. If we were sitting as a revolutionary convention, such as that which framed the Declaration of Independence, we should construe our powers as absolute and independent of all other sovereignties; but as a convention to form a constitution for a state, our action is conditioned by the organic law of the Federal Union. We are also controlled by such general legislation as has served to determine our territorial {438} boundaries and to inaugurate us into existence as an inceptive commonwealth. All such permanent features of the Organic Act, and more particularly the Enabling Act, are inviolable limitations of the powers of this Convention in the framing of measures for the guidance of the future State.

But with respect to the question of suffrage, who shall be the electors, the voters of the forthcoming State, this Convention has plenary power, and the whole subject in its entirety comes practically before us for determination. Thomas M. Cooley in his great work on Constitutional Limitations, page 752, says:

The whole subject of the regulation of elections, including the prescribing of qualifications for suffrage, is left by the national Constitution to the several states, except as it is provided by that instrument that the electors for representatives in Congress shall have the qualifications requisite for electors of the most numerous branch of the state legislature, and as the fifteenth amendment forbids denying to citizens the right to vote on account of race, color or previous condition of servitude. Participation in the elective franchise is a privilege rather than a right, and it is granted or denied on grounds of general policy, the prevailing view being that it should be as general as possible consistent with the public safety.

It is my purpose in this discussion to deal with the suffrage question in its broadest and most comprehensive form, and in order to do this I shall discharge from consideration all minor and subordinate phases of the subject. The first section of the article reported by the committee on elections and suffrage is elementary and primary. It is as broad as human nature and it responds to every possible demand of men and women in the complex relations of human society. It reads as follows:

The rights of citizens of the State of Utah to vote and hold office shall not be denied or abridged on account of sex. Both male and female citizens of this State shall equally enjoy all civil, political and religious rights and privileges.

delegated to frame for the coming commonwealth of Utah. It means that the narrowness, the selfishness, the passion and the prejudice of the long, dark past, shall no longer dominate our civilization. It means that men and women, equally members of society, equally answerable to law, equally responsible in taxes for the support of the State, equally creators and consumers of wealth, shall no longer find themselves subjected to discriminating legislation degrading to one- half the population and dishonoring to the other half, while the foundation of all legislation, the source and ground of all obligation and all right, is the same in both classes, all being created equal, all being endowed with the same inalienable rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. With this statement of the question I shall endeavor to present for your consideration a number of affirmative reasons why equal suffrage for men and women should be provided in the Constitution.

Principles come before precedents, although it is by means of precedents that we sift our principles. To act from principles is to make truth incarnate, to give it body and form in the world of fact and history. Life is a syllogism, with intelligence as the major premise and historic realties as the conclusion. Our free institutions are great facts; they are conclusions in the world of real life from the intellectual data eternally subsistent in the world of intelligence. We have our social frame work, our actual social life under the shadow of certain forms of law, our statutes and our constitutions. All these are conclusions wrought from larger principles of intelligence. In so far as we differ from the nations of the east that are warring to-day, that difference is largely due to certain broad principles of liberty that have entered into our national life and from which we are constantly making history as conclusions. The principles that I allude to are those that are formulated in the Declaration of Independence. They were the full and free expression of the spirit of liberty that moved the hearts of the American people. They were the utterance of Divine Life for that grand stage of human development. They were the major premise of the civil and political history of the American people. As the words of Christ cover all the ages of the church, and as those words are increasingly fulfilled as the ages progress in knowledge and righteousness; so the words of the Declaration are for all advances in government, and they will be fulfilled in proportion as government is perfected. I can here only occupy your time long enough to turn the light upon a few of the inscriptions upon the temple of liberty, that you way read them as they stand emblazoned there, and apply their meanings to the subject we are now considering.

When the fathers stood together in that revolutionary council, they stood free and independent of every nation on earth. The only sovereign to whom they sought to declare allegiance was the God of heaven, the Creator of all. When they said that “All men are created equal,” they meant to recognize the handiwork and institution of the Almighty. When they spoke of “inalienable rights” they spoke of them as being made “inalienable” only by “their Creator.” When they spoke of human governments, they spoke of them as being inferior to the constitution implanted {440} in human nature by God Himself. They said that governments were made to “secure these rights,” and that when they failed to do so, they should be “altered” and “abolished,” and others framed that would more fully carry out the purpose of God. They said that the only condition on which governments should operate and control the lives of men was the “consent of the governed.” These are some of the divinely illumined principles that bear upon the subject in hand. The fathers meant by saying that “all men are created equal,” just what is expressed in the section we

are now discussing; that men and women shall “equally enjoy all civil, political and religious rights and privileges.” These principles are self-evident in their verity. I do not need to argue or explain them. We can read them as we run; “the way-faring man though a fool” need not misunderstand them. Men and women, in the Declaration of Independence, stand on an equality, just as they did in the mind of the Creator when He said (Gen. i: 26, 27), “And God said, let us make man in our own image, after our likeness, and let them have dominion.” Here we have the same Divine image for both; they have the same blood, the same nature, the same intelligence, the same moral law, the same responsibility, the same destiny. Our conscript fathers recognized this sameness of essential qualities and relationship, and on these grounds they said that “All men are created equal.” Their declaration was expressive of the purpose and counsels of the Great Creator, and this first section expressly declares the purpose and intent of the declaration of the fathers.

Moreover, when government steps in to perform its office in the world, it must be in subordination to these principles; that is, to “secure these rights.” And the condition precedent on which alone government can exert its authority over men is the “consent of the governed.” On any other terms government is usurpation and tyranny. Whatever the right may be, whether of life, liberty or property, government must first obtain jurisdiction through the “consent of the governed,” by means of normal and equal representation. There are thousands of women taxpayers in Utah; more in proportion to population than in any other State; so long as they acquiesce in being represented by the other half of society, we may conclude that no open violence is done them in respect to their civil and political rights. But whenever such women disclaim such representation, whenever they claim their right to be governed only as they yield their “consent,” according to the declaration, we are guilty of usurpation and tyranny whenever we resolve to make them amenable to our government, without first providing for obtaining their consent through the ordinary channels of representation. We know that the entire American revolution originated in the refusal of Great Britain to accord representation as a condition of taxation; and it seems impossible that in this dawning of the twentieth century any member of this Convention would seek to perpetrate the same injustice in the institutions that we are now to frame for Utah.

Precedents arise when the world of intelligence and principle becomes embodied in the world of fact and history. Principles are eternal; so that with respect to them in an absolute sense, there is “nothing new under the sun.” But, as successive ages present new phases of principle, we comprehend the saying, as applied to every epoch in history, “Behold I make all things new.” We say of the past that it is a light and a guide to the present. Patrick Henry said, “There is but one lamp by which my feet are guided, and that is the lamp of experience.” It is to experience that profoundest wisdom appeals. The system of law that conserves our rights and liberties, is a system of well ordered {441} and well preserved experiences. It is a system of facts and precedents, comprehensive, diversified, and rising into a body of harmonious, practical and authoritative knowledge.

But, mark you! the world would have perished long ago had it not been possible for it to grow out of, above and beyond the precedents and experiences of any preceding age. It is wisdom to respect precedents, but it is folly and destruction to be bound by them to the extent that we shall

not modify them, reform them, cast some of them away, and interpret the deeper meaning of others. Suppose the feudal system which was so deeply rooted into Anglo-Saxon civilization during the middle ages had held full sway on the score of precedent and experience? To-day, if in existence at all, we should in a vast majority of cases be held in the most abject bondage. Suppose our fore-fathers had been governed entirely by precedent and usage. To-day we should be in a state of colonial serfdom to Great Britain. Suppose the train of legal precedents that culminated in the Dred Scott decision of Chief Justice Taney had been acquiesced in by the American people? To-day we should be dominated by the slave oligarchy, and the enfranchised millions would still be the chattels of their owners. Now the great thought underlying all this diversity and apparent contradiction of experience and precedent with principle is that while absolute truth and principle are eternal and immutable, yet it is only in proportion as humanity grows to its full stature that they can be incorporated into human life and institutions. Hence every age has a deep kernel of truth within its social life; but the purely practical and superficial beliefs, experiences and precedents must be sloughed off like the bark of the eucalyptus tree; for they are misleading for any subsequent age, valuable only as milestones that mark the progress of growth from crude beginnings to larger and truer civilization.

In relation to the subject in hand, the the first section of the article on suffrage, the proposition that I lay down as a conclusion from the foregoing remarks under this head, is that the distinctive principles of American political history were promulgated by the fathers in the revolutionary Congress of 1776; and that American precedents will grow in harmony therewith from age to age until the fullness of those principles shall have expression in American political and civil life. We have seen already, in the light of one of the most sanguinary and persistent struggles in the history of the world, that while Thomas Jefferson perceived the application of those principles to the condition of the slave, and said, “I tremble when I remember that God in just;” yet the body of the country did not feel the force of the divine truth that weighed upon his soul. So it was left to the people as a whole to grow into a knowledge of the truth until it should burn upon their hearts, and reveal to them that slavery was in direct violation of the principles of liberty laid down in the Declaration. When the time finally arrived and the genius of liberty struck the hour for old things to pass away and all things to be made new, the inhumane precedents of all past years were swept to the winds by the besom of destruction. Abraham Lincoln stood out as the servant of God to give effect to the words of Divine inspiration through Thomas Jefferson and the other seers of American freedom. With one desperate carnival of death, the dark cloud, like a funeral pall, rolled away! The sky became clear, and slavery was gone! The Constitution of the United States had sloughed off the dead bark of selfishness and inhumanity that had grown upon it from the precedents of Rome and Greece and all the barbarous past. That Constitution was renewed by incorporating {442} within it the eternal principles of the Declaration of Independence.

So it must be with the suffrage question. Lincoln saw and declared that under the principles of American liberty, it was a violation of the trust reposed in us by the God of liberty to hold half our population in a state of disfranchisement. He declared that women as well as men were entitled to the franchise. He knew, too, that the time had not come for action in the matter; but we may rest assured that if our country is to have a future, it must be on condition that the truths which lie at the foundation of our nationality must have freer and fuller course in our civil and

political life as the years roll on.

At the start of our country's history the women by custom and usage gave a tacit and implied “consent” that in public affairs they should be “represented” by the suffrage of the male half of the population. The precedents have largely run in this direction. But, as in the case of African slavery, the political equality of man and woman as a truth of the Declaration has stood out in manifestation of dissent through many years. At first this truth was but a speck on the horizon not larger than a man's hand, like the rising cloud before the eyes of the prophet of old. Soon equal suffrage, as an issue, began to fill the sky; and now we know that a great change in political life is upon us. Old things must pass away; all things must be renewed in the light of the undying principles of American liberty.

We have now a respectable number of precedents on the lines which I advocate. The section now under consideration is taken bodily from the organic law of an adjoining state. The case of Wyoming is peculiarly instructive. Her natural resources and topography are similar to our own; her wealth and population are inferior, and in respect to educational facilities and popular intelligence we may perhaps claim an equal precedence, according to the United States census. But the point of importance is that Wyoming legalized woman suffrage during twenty years of the territorial government preceding statehood. On the eve of statehood the governor gave public testimonials of the highest character in behalf of the efficiency and value of woman's enfranchisement. He predicted that it would be incorporated into the state government. And it was so incorporated, notwithstanding at one point of the proceedings in Congress relative to Wyoming statehood, there came an opportunity to carry the measure in case the woman suffrage feature of their constitution were eliminated. Senator Carey wired the Wyoming people, telling them the circumstances, and asking if they wished statehood on condition that equal suffrage be changed to male suffrage. His constituents replied that unless women were admitted to equal suffrage they preferred to remain a territory. In the end the objections to the equal suffrage feature were overcome, and hence we have the section before us as a part of the organic law of Wyoming.

Under date of March 23, 1895, United States Senator C. D. Clark of Wyoming writes concerning equal suffrage in that state as follows:

So far as the operation of the law in this state is concerned, we were so well satisfied with twenty years' experience under the territorial government that it went into our constitution with but one dissenting vote, although many thought that such a section in our constitution might result in its rejection by Congress. If it does nothing else it fulfills the theory of true representative government, and in this state, at least, has resulted in none of the evils prophesied. It has not lowered womanhood. It has not been the fruitful source of family disagreements feared. Women do generally take advantage of the right to vote, and vote intelligently. It has been years since we have had trouble at the polls, quiet and order, in my opinion, being due, however, to two causes, the presence of women as well as our very efficient election laws. One important {443} feature I might mention and that is that in view of the woman vote no party dare nominate notoriously immoral men, for fear of defeat by that vote. Regarding the adoption of the system in other states I perhaps am not qualified to judge, but I see no reason why its operation should not be generally the same elsewhere as it is with us. It is surely true that after many years' experience Wyoming would not be content to return to the old limits, as, in our opinion, the absence of ill results is conclusive

proof of the wisdom of the proposition, because in theory at least the plan is right.

Women bring to the exercise of the right of equal suffrage an intelligence fully equal to that of the male voter. One of the apparent results of the presence of women as participators in political matters is that political parties must exercise greater care than before as to the character and standing of nominees for office. The presence of women at the polls is looked upon as an undisguised blessing, and if the question as to whether the right of suffrage should be bestowed on women should be again submitted to the voters of Colorado, it would be carried in the affirmative by a far greater majority than it received a year ago.

The same apprehensions that are said to exist concerning the women could just as well prevail with regard to the men, and general distrust would be the result. Indeed they were so entertained till events proved their utter falsity. If you believe that my wife cannot be safely trusted with the ballot, do you not also believe that it is unsafe in my hands? And if not, why not? She is just as solicitous for the public weal as I am and could not do a wrong to society more easily than her husband. Is it not a fact, gentlemen, that the objection is fanciful; or to say the most that could be said, is it not sentimental rather than real? This fear is idle and futile. The suspicion is unjust. The women of Utah exercised the privileges of electors for seventeen years, and I have yet to learn of a single instance in which that sacred privilege was abused. The franchise was not taken away from them because they were deemed unworthy or unfit for the trust, but for other reasons which have long {444} since ceased to exist. The least we can do is to restore it in the Constitution.

Experience has shown that new responsibilities carry with them the determination to fit one's self for the new duties imposed. As opportunities have been afforded to women to acquire the higher

branches of education and become learned in the professions, they have embraced them. Their minds and characters have responded to their enlarged opportunities and they have shown themselves as capable of independent thought and action as men. So it will be in the new State. Women will qualify themselves for the duties of citizenship and they will think and act from their own trained intelligence. Their “generous impulses” will supply a new element in politics, which has long been needed to check the tendency towards degeneration. They will perform their mission as vital members of the State with as high a degree of wisdom and prudence and certainly with no less integrity, than men.

So I say that if the price of statehood is the disfranchisement of one-half of the people; if our wives and mothers, our sisters and daughters, are to be accounted either unworthy or incapacitated to exercise the rights and privileges of citizenship, then, however precious the boon may be, it is not worth the price demanded, and I am content to share with them the disabilities of territorial vassalage till the time shall come, as it will come in the providence of God, when all can stand side by side on the broad platform of human equality, of equal rights, and of equal capacity.

It is claimed by our opponents that equal suffrage is a menace to the home. If I believed that, rather should my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth, and my hand forget its cunning, than that I should say or do aught to promote it. I yield to no man in love and veneration for the home. I believe with the supreme court of the United States that the sanctities of husband and wife constitute “the greatest solace of human existence.” But I believe in the home where husband and wife are equal, where they are companions, partners if you please, in the labors and cares and joys of life. I know that such a home and family can exist without the impairment of a single womanly attribute, and that greater happiness is thus attained than by preserving the old time distinctions of the spheres of the sexes. Neither men nor women can know their true sphere till there is perfect freedom to both.

It is said by our opponents that women are better than men, and therefore they ought not to have the franchise. I have heard this argument used, if argument it may be called, a great many times, but I have never yet known a woman who felt complimented by the statement that she was too good to exercise the same rights and privileges as a man. My experience and observation lead me to believe that while men admit the superiority of women in many respects, the latter do not care so much for this admission as they do for an acknowledgment of their equality, and that equality we are bound in honor to concede. There is a world of meaning in the words of that bright woman who said, “Women need justice as well as love.”

It has been said that women do not want to vote. This may be true of some women, but no one can truthfully deny that the majority of the women of Utah demand the suffrage. To say that some of them do not desire to vote is no argument, because there are some men who do not care to vote, yet no one would think of depriving one man of that privilege because some other man did not prize it. There are women who are dependent upon their own exertions for support, and they should have the aid and protection of the ballot to help them in the struggle for existence, even though some of {445} their more favored sisters do not desire it. Besides, no one will be compelled to vote if the privilege is granted. Women will be as free to stay away from the polls

as men are now. There is no compulsion about the matter.
It is claimed that women are more likely to be governed by impulse than by reason. Meaning, I suppose, that they act on intuition, instead of taking time to reach conclusions by reasoning, as men do. What we call intuition in woman is oftentimes the very essence of reason. She arrives at conclusions quicker than man, but her conclusions are nevertheless correct. She reaches the truth at a single bound, while man is clumsily striving to reach the same result by a slower process of reasoning. Why is this? It is a scientific truth that her nervous structure is better fitted for receiving and transmitting vibrations with vividness and swiftness than that of man. Intuition has a mechanism in her physical organism of the nature of a delicate electric plant. By it she is brought into more intimate relation with the universal intelligence than her duller companion. She is rarely misled, because she is in closer connection with the subliminal consciousness and receives the inspiration of the Divine Spirit. Why, then, should not her endowments of mind and heart be utilized in the councils of the State and her womanly influence go forth for the welfare of society?

The minority say, “Surely no one desires a return to the conditions of the past.” Certainly not, and least of all the women. But why should equal suffrage produce such dire results? If the division of men on national party lines has been its own vindication in the production of harmony and good will among the male element of society, why should it not produce similar results among women and cause them to know and appreciate each other better? They will undoubtedly align themselves with the great political parties. Even now they are democrats and republicans populists and prohibitionists. No reasonable man can believe that the women of Utah have listened to the political discussions of the past five years without forming convictions and taking sides in the great contest. No, my friends, the imagined danger is unreal, and if, instead of presaging disaster, we shall confidently turn our eyes to the light, renew our faith in human nature, and, with true purpose of heart, help to avert anticipated evils, I feel from the very depths of my soul that no evil will come. To do this is the duty, as I conceive, of every citizen of Utah. How much better such a course than to deny to women their rights because we choose to cherish a fear that evil might come from granting them. I do not believe in such Jesuitical doctrine. To do wrong that good may come is never right. The wrong always remains but the good never comes. It is only by fidelity to conscience and right that we can hope to maintain self-respect and promote the welfare of the State. I do not believe in an expediency that counsels a departure from the right in order to remedy a possible wrong. It is too closely allied to the argument of tyranny.

Expediency in the best sense and in the broadest form is the highest wisdom of the statesman, and that expediency asks equal suffrage at our hands. Expediency requires the use of the best means that circumstances will supply for the highest and truest ends that can be attained under the conditions that prevail. There are absolute principles at the foundation of things. These are as unchangeable as the axioms of mathematics. There are perfect ideals to be attained in the process of the world's evolution. We are, age after age, approximating those ideals. But the whole course of progress is beset with failures and imperfections. Progress implies defective conditions to start with. Knowledge and experience, customs {446} and habits, laws and institutions, are all to be acquired by the race in its onward march. There has been no stopping place for society from the beginning. At every stage there is a better and truer beyond. If absolute principles have been enunciated in the past, it is the work of the ages to incorporate them into laws and to embody

them in social life.

Hence, it is only as proposed measures are expedient under all the circumstances, broadly considered, that they should become laws. In a barbarous state of mankind, it would be in vain to commence with free institutions of any description; for such institutions are only adapted to a people of advanced intelligence and experience. All such savage tribes will provide for themselves various forms of absolutism and chieftainship until they are prepared for something better. But passing by the consideration of barbarous races and remote times, I call your attention to the present state of civilization, and to the people whom we represent. What is expedient for Utah? and especially, what is expedient with respect to the electoral system that we are about to pass upon? I claim that the section we have in hand will reflect in its adoption the highest expediency on the part of this Convention.

The primary thought to which I call your attention as the basis of expediency is the most comprehensive of all that enter into the complex notion of government_I mean that of sovereignty. One of the most acute foreign writers that ever philosophzied on American institutions, De Tocquerville , in volume 1, page 36, of his Democracy of America, says:

Whenever the political laws of the United States are to be discussed, it is with the doctrine of the sovereignty of the people that we must begin.

In the general discussion of sovereignty, in the preceding sections, that power has been supposed to reside in the body politic, comprising the whole population of the commonwealth, without distinction of age or sex.

The sovereign power consists in the collective will and in the faculty of wielding and disposing those forces which obey that will.

How is it with the theory of the state? Political science finds its premises in the fact of human nature. The motive forces of political life, and also of economic life, are the desires of men, but under another aspect.

They are desires no longer individual merely; and no longer a craving for satisfactions that must come for the most part in material forms. No, there are desires massed and generalized; desires felt simultaneously and continuously by thousands, or even by millions of men, who are by them simultaneously moved to concerted action. They are desires of what we may call the social mind in {447} distinction from the individual mind; and they are chiefly for such things as national power and renown, or conditions of liberty and peace. Transmuted into will they become sovereignty, the obedience compelling power of the state.

With this exposition of sovereignty as the social consciousness and will of the people, we are prepared to appreciate the solemn, and I may say lamentable significance of a doctrine laid down by Mr. Cooley in his Constitutional Limitations, page 40. He says: “When we say the sovereignty of the state is vested in the people, the question very naturally presents itself, what are we to understand by the people as used in this connection? What should be the correct rule upon this subject, it does not fall within our province to consider.” Think of it! Here is the foremost constitutional authority in the world, perhaps, who declares that it does not fall within his province to say what the correct rule of exercising the sovereignty of a state should be. In what follows he gives the rule that most of the states have adopted; but he has already said that it is not his province to state the “correct” rule. Presumably what he does give as the general rule of the states is not the correct one. The rule that he gives is as follows, on the same page: “As a practical fact the sovereignty is vested in those persons who are permitted by the constitution of the state to exercise the elective franchise. Certain classes have been almost universally excluded_the woman from mixed motives but mainly, perhaps, because, in the natural relation of marriage, she was supposed to be under the influence of her husband, and, where the common law prevailed, actually was in a condition of dependence upon and subjection to him.”

Here you have a statement of the rule actually obtaining in the framing of our state constitutions in general, with respect to the greatest of all facts entering into the structure of government_that of sovereignty_the social consciousness and will_the voice of God in the human soul. It is noble of this great author to say that he does not propose to state the “correct” rule, that it is no part of his work to say what “should be.” The truth is, the rule that he gives is the rule that we have followed hitherto in most of the states, and that rule is a falsification of the Declaration of Independence and an abitrary denial of the natural equality of the sexes; it is usurpation and tyranny over one-half our population, many thousands of whom are independent wealth creators and taxpayers in Utah, and in other states of our Union. Shall we perpetuate this injustice? Shall we give further sanction to a perversion so vital to the fundamental principles of our free government? I have shown that on the score of principle, we have no warrant for such an unjust

and inhumane discrimination. I have shown that our best and truest precedents Are now pointing the other way. I now {448} wish to conclude this head by showing that the highest expediency confirms the logic of principles and precedents.

The sovereignty of human aggregates gathered together as they are into nationalities over the earth, is the region in which the Infinite Life manifests itself, and in which the purpose of the Creator and the destiny of nations are wrought out. Whatever happens to a nation is the result of the nature and conduct of its sovereignty, its mind and will as an organic whole. We know that the nations of the past have all faded into sepulchral gloom. They live only in the annals and ruins that mark their oblivion. We can now see how fragmentary and partial their national life was. And, if we are hastening on to a similar fate, the central cause of our danger is that our real, underlying, sovereign life is not truly represented in our government. Permit me to illustrate: The forces of the universe are all correlated. There is no element of force or atom of matter that is lost or wasted. All are renewed in some correlated form. It is in this view that universal nature becomes perpetual. Were forces or substances lost, the world would run down and become extinct. In a way somewhat similar the two halves of human nature are correlated; and to restrict the sovereign functions of a nation to the will of one-half its inhabitants, is to insure such a partial representation and correlation of the social consciousness, that imperfection and failure must result.

The testimony of scientific investigation is that with the establishment of the family, even in its rudest form, came the idea of property. There could otherwise be no conception of the deed for property and consequently the value of it. With the family property originated, and with the family government took its rise. All through the ages, women have been the conservative power that has prevented nations from being wrecked into fragments. The home and the family have always been the sheet anchor of prosperity rather than the cabinet and council. The destruction of nations has largely resulted because its councils were divorced from the home life, from the people at large, from social consciousness. There was no correlation and interaction within the central source_the power_the sovereignty_the popular will. I am bold to say that within the aggregate mind of the disfranchised half of our population in these United States, there are elements of reserved power that will prove invaluable to our national security and prosperity.

We have laid hands upon the sacred ark of God, and stricken down half its potency for our welfare; and in the end we could not do otherwise but reap disaster. Why should a nation fail, except that it falls into discord with itself; and how could it do otherwise so long as only one class of its population embodies its sovereignty? So long as women in the past have tacitly consented to be represented by the other sex, there has been an excuse for unequal representation. But now that millions of taxpaying women in the United States ask to form part of the actual and visible sovereignty, it is but just and right to enfranchise them; and by every principle of truth and liberty it is unjust and tyrannical to refuse them this endowment. In this view, and from the deepest sources of our national life, I claim that the highest expediency and the most profound statesmanship enjoin upon us the fullest measure of justice under our boasted free institutions. If we cannot see these things, there is no need of sunlight; if we cannot do them, there is no need of conscience and a sense of civil obligation.

A few thousand years ago, men and women lived in the most abject savagery. These conditions still prevail in some regions of the earth. In all such places brute force holds supremacy. Might is right, and moral perceptions are based on the sway of physical force and brute strength. The survival of the fittest is survival of the strongest. It is the reign of force, horn and tusk, knife and club_these are the symbols of power and sovereignty in the early stages of human development, whether those stages exist now or have been superseded by a higher order of life.

In the outset of human progress, woman is subordinated to the selfishness, passion, inhumanity and brutality of man. His life is mainly muscular, physical, sensual and brutal. His reason and affection are undeveloped. Woman, because of her motherhood, is incapacitated for the shock and struggle of physical supremacy; hence, in the early stages, she is in thralldom to her brutal lord. In the writings of travelers we learn that even recently in some barbarous regions, the suitor for a wife, thinking of no other charm than a club, would lie in ambush, and when the object of his regards came within range, he would spring from his lair, strike her a stunning blow, carry her off to his tepee, and ever after hold her in such subjection to himself as his
nature and passions might dictate. Even in this rude barbarism, we have the beginning of the family, the dawn of the home, the inauguration of the idea of property, the inception of government; for government is but the growth of a rude and barbarous family into a cluster of families, with the adjustments and improvements that naturally arise with the increase of knowledge.

Therefore, while written history and formal goverment indicated considerable advances in human progress, they both point back ward to a period of brute force, a supremacy of physical might, in which woman figures as a slave to the superior prowess of man. On the other hand, in the very nature and essence of progress, we find a remedy. It is this: in the process of evolution, the motive powers of life, the desires, rise from mere animal impulse and instinct to such as are more rational and intelligent. That is, as man's mind develops he is governed more by reason and less by force. His affections grow more enlightened and spiritual. He becomes more humane, benevolent and philanthropic. He grows naturally more and more into the perfect life. The Christain principle is native to the human soul, and to realize it, man must grow from the brutal into the spiritual. Hence, progress as a process rises more and more into the physical nature of man for its motive power. Progress brings the race under the control of the law of love and benevolence. Our laws and institutions grow more humane. We provide more amply for the poor. We provide educational facilities for all. Freedom enlarges her sway; liberty grows broader and more generous. Nations submit their grievances to arbitration. International law and comity

prevail. In a thousand ways the world comes under the control of the higher and more spiritual affection and intelligence of the human mind. This is the process and tendency of progress.
{450}
Now from the standpoint of the most advanced science, we may affirm that the key and clue to all this progress, humanity and benevolence is found in the female instinct of motherhood affection. In the brute world we find the mother's love for offspring stronger than the instinct for self preservation. This is an unfailing passion throughout the whole course of organic life, whether brute or human. This is natural altruism or mother love, and in Christ it broadens out to include the whole human race. As nations progress they become humanized, Christianized; they are drawn more and more into the altruism of nature, the maternal instinct of the race. Men may feel reluctant to make the acknowledgment, but it is true that in proportion as our laws, institutions and social customs become humane and philanthropic, in the same proportion they conform to the instincts and affections that are naturally and historically characteristic of womanliness. It was through this channel that the creating love and charity first flowed into human nature, and thence into all human social relations. We may say, therefore, that humane and benevolent progress is essentially womanly and has its origin in the self-sacrifice of motherhood. This principle in its development will give us educational institutions, charitable foundations, a larger brotherhood in social relations, a more vital co-operation in government.

As I have already stated, a nation is an organism, and has a will and intelligence peculiar to itself; it is an enlarged family. Government is a species of housekeeping. It is equally true that all modern ideas of government, such as are given in the Declaration of Independence, locate the source, origin and foundation of government in the whole membership of the household, in the several individuals that constitute the family. Monarchial, aristocratic and class governments withdraw from the membership of the family. An elder son, or child of fortune usurps authority over his kinsmen. In this country the principle of family government has been adopted in theory to the fullest extent. “We, the people,” is the formula for the beginning of all government. The only question is: Shall we adopt our own theory and put it into practice? That we should do so in Utah and all over the United States is the logic of the situation. It is the lesson of the past, the hope of the future.

Moreover, our civilization in its wealthier centers is now exhibiting a type which is really most alarming and which in my opinion, can only be remedied by enlarging the sphere and functions of woman so that she will be vitally connected with the real and substantial interests of society. I mean that among people in the great cities, who are in possession of all the accessories of wealth, where true civilization ought to be the highest and most refined, there it is already a comparative failure. Women are absorbed in fashion, frivolity, vanity, display and the thousand trivialities that render life frivolous and worthless. They have no part or lot in the real work of society; they are utterly ignored in the substantial realities of industrial, civil and political life; and being thus driven to the delusive shadows of opulent vanity, they become the moths and butterflies that float about in the halls and parlors of palatial mansions and air themselves at watering places, the creatures of caprice and weakness, the gaudy glare of ill-gotten wealth under our lopsided economic system. This is the wealthy excrescence of our civilization. As long as woman's sphere is divorced from the realities of civil, political and economic life, we dare not become greatly prosperous as a people. Because under such circumstances wealth leads to destruction. Such

people do not perpetuate their own species; and if they did, and if such progeny should become numerous, {451} we would become a race of dudes and vanish from the earth in pure disgust. What is necessary in all such cases is that woman should become a real helpmate and companion for man. She should share his knowledge, his toils, his cares, his pleasures and his sorrows. God made her to be a companion in the fullest and truest sense of the word. He gave her intelligence, sympathy and intuition for such companionship; and man destroys his prospects for human progress by making her a creature for his vanity and an instrument for his selfishness. I repeat again that we dare not become prosperous until both men and women are put in a way to learn and be educated by the great realities of life, political and social; and so long as men pervert the plans of the Creator they will reap failure and dishonor.

Only recently women have been permitted to enter the universities, professions and business walks of life; and while this has been beneficial to the women, and has made them more independent and self-respecting, it has at the same time tended to purify business and add to public life an element of brightness and cheerfulness. We all know something of the influence of the woman nature in a mining camp. When composed of men exclusively it soon recedes backwards into rudeness, profanity and vulgarity. Let woman come upon the scene and a transformation soon takes place. Men become human, loving, self-respecting and courteous. The better and higher impulses of life are encouraged, and the mining camp puts on the air of respectable and orderly society. Is any man so dull as not to perceive that what is accomplished here in a little mining community would be of inestimable value when put into operation in the State and in the nation at large? Government is simply national housekeeping, and we all know that woman has peculiar gifts for housekeeping. She is the original housekeeper and home maker. Out of her very life, and in her deepest sympathies she made the home, she guarded the little inmates of the home; through her the little bunch of chattels was gathered about the home; and if she is given a chance she will do a noble and God-given part in purifying and perfecting the national household.

It will be seen, therefore, from the question as previously stated, that civil and political rights and privileges as set forth in this discussion, are incidents and phases of government; that all human government is founded upon the “consent” of the governed, which is the fundamental condition antecedent to all government; that human beings are “by their Creator” empowered to give or withhold this consent, just in proportion as government “secures” the rights of life, liberty and happiness, and that it can only be given through the customary channels of representation; that the section now under consideration provides for the full “consent” of our people according to the Declaration of Indepence and the laws written upon human hearts by the God of nature; that civil and political rights and privileges are wholly independent of sex distinctions; that all rights have their source and reason in human nature; which is constituted in the likeness of the Divine Sovereignty; that humanity and its endowments come first, and government with its privileges is subordinate; that it is tyranny to pervert this order which has been incorporated into our institutions and made a part of our temple of liberty. It is only, as I believe, by the adoption of this section that we can inaugurate the true theory of government, or show forth the full purpose of God in human affairs. It is only as we incorporate equal suffrage into our organic law that we can fully interpret the social consciousness and will; that we can carry the home life with its order, purity, economy and thrift into government; that we can inaugurate {452} the beneficent

and humane progress which is now the pride and glory of our civilization. Hence I reaffirm that equal suffrage should be provided in the Constitution, because it is just and right, and because it is in the highest and best sense expedient. I know that a majority of the members of this Convention concur with me in this belief. I have no doubt that a majority of the people of Utah entertain the same view, and so I feel assured that it will be incorporated in the organic law. The Constitution will be adopted by the people; our State will be admitted into the Union; equal suffrage will prove the brightest and purest ray of Utah's glorious star; it will shine forever in the immortal galaxy, as a beacon light on the tops of the mountains beckoning our sister states and territories upward and onward to the higher plane of civilization, and the fuller measure of civil and religious liberty.

Mr. CANNON. Mr. Chairman and gentlemen of the committee, I do not desire to take up very much time of your committee, but there are several points in connection with this minority report which I do not feel that I can pass over in silence. In the first place, a direct charge is made that the people of Utah, directly or indirectly, would be in a position, were statehood granted, to bring about destruction to those who constitute a minority in this Territory so far as religious connections are concerned. I submit, gentlemen of the committee, that the charge which is made here is not warranted by the facts in the case. I was this morning pleased to hear the gentleman from Davis County (Mr. Roberts) announce that he had not known what would be contained in the minority report, which he struggled so viciously to have introduced. I do not think that the past history of the people of Utah warrants any man or any set of men in making the charges that are contained in that minority report. If you will permit me for a moment, I desire to call your attention to the fact that in 1892, at the time that the first election took place for a delegate after the division upon party lines, that in this Territory we had a republican executive, in Washington both houses of Congress were controlled by the republican party, a republican President sat in the presidential chair, and all of the interests of the people of Utah pointed to the advisability upon their part to curry favor with the national administration, and to elect at that time, a republican delegate to Congress. What was the result? We find that they elected, in spite of the efforts that were made, and in spite of the vicious campaign on the part of the republicans, a democratic delegate, and in doing so testified to the world that they were sincere and that they were not governed by party expediency. How was it in the next year? You will remember that in 1892 a tidal wave politically swept over our entire country and that in the next year, 1893, the democratic party was in possession fully of all branches of the government. We had a democratic governor, we had a democratic house, the senate was democratic, and the President was democratic. At that time upon the stump democrats made this kind of a charge and this kind of a logic: what good will it do you to elect a republican Legislature with a democratic governor, with a secretary of the state democratic, who would be governor in case of absence of the governor himself? What laws can you expect to engraft upon your statute books when that governor has the absolute veto power? At that time attempts were made to induce the people of Utah to vote on the ground of expediency, but they signally failed. Though the national party_though Utah, though her executive, in her different branches, was controlled by the democracy, the {453} Legislature which was elected at that time contained a majority of republicans in its feelings and tendencies.

The next year, the year which has just closed, 1894, after a democratic Congress had provided the

Enabling Act by which it was expected that Utah would go into the Union at a time when the democracy claimed that it would again sweep the country and elect triumphantly a majority of the house, and in the senate, when everything pointed to the expediency of electing a democrat to represent the people of Utah in the halls of Congress as their delegate, when gratitude was urged as a cause why they should vote for the able man who represented the democratic party in that canvass, I say that when the people of Utah were deaf to the cry_to the plea for the expediency and said, “We will vote the sentiments that we have in our hearts, let it affect statehood however it may,” that is the history of the people of Utah in connection with this division movement, and it is that with which they come before you at this time. Nobody has ever in the past been able to coerce them into doing that which the sentiment of the people did not approve. They have had a similar sentiment to that throughout the United States. You will find that when Utah went democratic the rest of the nation went democratic. You will find that when Utah went republican the rest of the nation, speaking of them generally, went republican. One spirit seems to permeate the country from one end to the other, and that spirit rests upon the people of Utah in common with the rest of the nation. When charged that in Utah people were governed by policy, they charge that which bears upon its face its own refutation, because they must be prophets indeed before elections take place to know what would be the sentiment throughout the country. In the next place, the charge was resented by our friend from Davis County (Mr. Roberts) a gentleman whom I highly esteem, that the minority who presented this report were prompted by improper motives in withholding that report. You, who were here, (and doubtless all of the delegates were here yesterday,) know with what vigor he repelled that charge, and yet forsooth, how coolly he rests under a charge that forty thousand women in Utah Territory would be governed by improper motives, and would not vote as they saw the right would dictate that they should vote. In the language of Edmund Burke, you cannot indict a whole people. You cannot place that charge upon a whole class. Those who make it most make it for reasons known to themselves. But I throw back the charge and say, that the women of my acquaintance, those with whom I have associated, will not be governed by improper motives, that I would sooner trust my life, my honor, all that I have, with them than with the majority of the voters throughout the Territory of Utah at the present time.

It is not a fitting thing that w e should permit a charge of this character to be made. They tell us in this minority report that woman has the intellectual attainments, that at least she is entitled by her natural endowments to vote intelligently, and as stated by the gentleman from Utah County, a great objection to her voting is that she is better than man. Be that as it may, I claim, gentlemen, that three things should constitute qualifications for voting: First, intelligence, second, purity of life and thought, and third, patriotism. Women have all these in the highest degree. They have the intelligence, it is conceded by all who have spoken. They have the purity, for it is conceded by all, including this minority who make this report; they have the patriotism, as the history of all time will show. Go to a nation {454} whose women are not pure and you will find there a nation whose men are not worthy of the name. Give me a nation of patriots and you will find that a nation of Cleopatras will corrupt a nation of Caesars, and will bring down all the highest attributes and all the higher impulses to the groveling instincts that follow such a connection. If we admit a claim that the women of Utah are not entitled to this respect, I claim that then the men of Utah are not entitled to it. Because Congress saw fit to take from the women the elective franchise, because through the charges that were made against the men of Utah and their

practices, they took from women that right which they had possessed for 17 years, is that any reason why you should perpetuate the wrong which was committed, the injustice which was done? Why it is too much like the first man who shielded himself and his weakness behind the woman and said that she gave him and he did eat. I have had some of my friends tell me that every ballot ought to have a bullet behind it, that the men who vote ought to have also the strength to carry a gun and go to war. Upon that principle, I submit that our friend John L. Sullivan and our friend Corbett ought to have two votes apiece and Alexander Stevens, one of the brightest men that we ever had and who was weak in his form, should not have been allowed to vote at all, because he was physically incapacitated to perform the duties of a soldier. We cannot decide it in that way. But woman has the strength within herself to inspire in others a love of country as she herself has always proved that she has the love of country. They claim in this minority report that a woman is bound by impulses and that she does things upon impulses, not believing that there is a law. Why, go back and read your history and you will find instances in every page where woman has not been governed solely by impulse, but where she has been governed by the purest of all patriotism. Where will you find a man who has done more than did the Spartan mother, whose son had sold himself for precious gold, and who, coming back to his native land and finding that they knew of his perfidy, sought refuge in a place that was set apart, where the hand of men could not molest him? What was done by that Spartan mother? Knowing that under their law she could not and they could not bring him from his place of refuge, hers was the first hand to place, without a word, a stone in front of that door and set the example for her fellow men until they piled a heap of stones to that extent that he perished like a miserable rat in the hole into which he had gone. And how was it with the Spartan mothers too who saw their sons as they gave them their shields to go forth with them and told them to bring them back or come back upon them?

It was only that spirit which led Leonidas to defend with three hundred men the pass of Thermopylae against the thousands, yea, the millions that Persia had brought there. On that occasion it was not the question of the number of ballots or the number of spears behind the ballots but it was the question of the spirit which animated those interested in that. Now, I find upon examination, that it is not only with bullets that women can do damage. That was illustrated this morning during the beautiful address of my friend from Davis County, Mr. Roberts, where he was so sweetly willing to die. When he came to that portion of his address it reminded me of Doctor Holmes' description, where he says:

Oh, woman, thy falchion is a glittering eye;

If death lurk in it, oh, how sweet to die!

You take the hearts as Rudolph takes the head;

We die with love, and never dream we're dead.

Mr. SQUIRES. Mr. Chairman, I know that there are a number of gentlemen on this floor who desire to be heard upon this question; and I know also that those who have sat here so patiently and listened to what has already been said, are somewhat wearied with the effort; I therefore move that the committee now arise and report progress.

Mr. ROBERTS. Will the gentleman withhold that just one moment?

Mr. SQUIRES. Well, if one moment is to be measured by the ten moments some gentlemen have taken here, I should not like to withdraw it.

Mr. ROBERTS. Will you do it for one minute?

Mr. SQUIRES. For one minute by the clock.

Mr. ROBERTS. Mr. Chairman, before this committee shall rise, I merely want to make a personal explanation. And {456} that is, gentlemen have seen fit to make much out of my waiving a discussion of the merits of this question. I did it, sir, out of a desire to save time to the Convention. Understanding that gentlemen have made up their minds as to how they are going to

vote and nothing could be done in the way of conviction, I of course thought that the matter would go immediately almost to a vote, but since there has been a challenge for the discussion of this matter upon its merits, I shall do what I can to give that matter due consideration. I am prepared and was prepared this morning, merely using but three sheets of notes out of a possible fifteen upon the subject. And I shall be perfectly willing to place what I may have to say side by side with what has been said upon the merits of the question by other gentlemen, and I shall not object at all to running a tilt with my friend even from Utah County on the subject of logic. [Applause.]

Mr. SQUIRES. I now move that we rise and report progress.

The motion was agreed to.

The committee rose and reported as follows:

Your committee has had under consideration the article on elections and rights of suffrage and reports progress and asks leave to sit again.

The Convention then at 4:30 o'clock p. m. adjourned.