Susan B. Anthony

Clarina Howard Nichols—Council of Censors—Amending the Constitution—St. Andrew's Letter—Mr. Reed's Report—Convention Called—H. B. Blackwell on the Vermont Watchman—Mary A. Livermore in the Woman's Journal—Sarah A. Gibbs' Reply to Rev. Mr. Holmes—School Suffrage.

After the miseries growing out of the civil war were in a measure mitigated, there was a general awakening in the New England States on the question of suffrage for women, and in 1868 one after another organized for action. What Nathaniel P. Rogers was to New Hampshire in the anti-slavery struggle that was Clarina Howard Nichols[194] to Vermont in early calling attention to the unjust laws for woman. From 1843 to 1853 she edited the Windham County Democrat, in which she wrote a series of editorials on the property rights of women, and from year to year made her appeals in person to successive legislatures. Her patient labors for many years prepared the way for the organized action of 1868. The women of that State can never too highly appreciate all that it cost that noble woman to stand alone, as she did, through such bitter persecutions, vindicating for them the great principles of republican government.

And now, after a quarter of a century, instead of that one solitary voice in the district school-house and the State capitol, are heard in all Vermont's towns and cities, echoing through her valleys and mountains, the clarion voices of a whole band of distinguished men and women from all the Eastern States. The revival of the woman question in Vermont began with propositions to amend the constitution. We are indebted to a series of letters, written by a citizen of Burlington, signed "St. Andrew," for many of the interesting incidents and substantial facts as to the initiative steps taken in this campaign. He said:

The only way of amending the constitution is for the people (meaning the male voters) to elect, every seventh year, a board called the Council of Censors, consisting of thirteen persons. This council can, within a certain time, propose amendments to the constitution, and call a convention of one delegate from each town, elected by the freemen, to adopt or reject the articles of amendment proposed by the council. The Council of Censors, elected in March, 1869, proposed six amendments: (1) In relation to the creation of corporations; (2) in relation to biËnnial sessions and elections; (3) in relation to filling vacancies in the office of senators and town representatives; (4) in relation to the appointment, terms, etc., of judges of the Supreme Court; (5) providing that women shall be entitled to vote, and with no other restrictions than the law shall impose on men; (6) in relation to the manner of amending the constitution.

The election of delegates occurs on Tuesday, May 10, and the convention meets on the first Wednesday in June. There is no general excitement in the State in relation to any of the proposed changes; and now, upon the eve of the election, it is impossible for the most sagacious political observer to predict the fate of any of the amendments. The fifth is the only one in support of which public meetings have been held, and those took place the early part of the spring at the larger places in the State. The friends have never expected to obtain a majority, nor even a considerable vote in the convention, and the meetings that have been held were not expected to settle the question, but to awaken the public mind upon the subject. These meetings have been a decided success, attended by hundreds of intelligent citizens, many of whom for the first time listened to an address upon the subject. It is true that ladies were advised to remain away, but such advice generally resulted in a larger attendance; and to-day the measure has a firmer support than ever before, and its advocates are more confident of final success. We may not have more than "ten righteous" men elected to the convention, but that number was enough to save the cities of the plain, and we have full faith that as small a number can save the cities of the mountains.

The press of the State is divided on the subject. We have two dailies—one, the Rutland Herald, the oldest paper in the State, in favor of the movement, and the Free Press of Burlington, opposed to it. After the coming convention, no change can be made in our constitution for seven years, at least, and if the sixth amendment be adopted, not for ten years. But, in the meantime, the question will assume more importance by a constant agitation as to the equality of the sexes, the admission of women to the State University, the professions, and other rights to which men are entitled. Vermont can never emulate in wealth and population the manufacturing States of the seaboard, or the prairie States of the West; but she can win a nobler preËminence in the quality of her institutions. She may be the first State, as Wyoming already is the first territory, to give political equality to woman, and to show the world the model of a true republic.

St. Andrew.

Burlington, Vt., May 1, 1870.

Mr. Reed of Washington county submitted the report in favor of the woman suffrage amendment, from which we give the following:

One-half of the people of our State are denied the right of suffrage. Yet woman has all the qualifications—the capacity, the desire for the public welfare, that man has. She is among the governed. She pays taxes. Even-handed justice, a fair application of the principles of the Declaration of Independence and of our State constitution, give woman the ballot. There is no reason why woman should not be allowed to do what she is so eminently fit to do. We know no good reason why the most ignorant man should vote and the intelligent woman be refused. Our present political institutions were formed and shaped when men had their chief interests and pursuits out of doors, and women remained the humble slaves at home. The social change has been immense. Now woman sits by the side of man, is his companion and associate in his amusements, and in his labors, save the one of governing the country. And it is time that she should be in this.

The position of woman in regard to the common schools of the State is the most unjust. She must always be the chief instructor of the young in point of time and influence. She is their best teacher at home and in the school. And her share in this ever-expanding work is becoming vaster every day. Woman as mother, sister, teacher, has an intelligence, a comprehension of the educational needs of our youth, and an interest in their development, far in advance of the other sex. She can organize, control and teach the most difficult school in the State; yet she has no vote in the selection of teachers, the building, arrangements and equipments of school-houses, nor in the method and extent of instruction. She can pay her share of the expenses of schools, but can have no legal voice in their management. She can teach, but she can have no vote in determining what shall be taught. She is the very corner-stone of institutions which she has no power in shaping. Let us have her open, avowed and public coÖperation—always safer than indirect influence.

The submission of an amendment to the constitution necessarily aroused a general agitation on the proposed changes. The fifth amendment decided on by the board of censors seemed to create a more general interest than either of the others, and accordingly a meeting was called for its full consideration, that efficient steps might be taken for a thorough canvass of the State, preparatory to the May election, and issued the following call:

The friends of woman suffrage in Vermont are requested to meet in mass convention at Montpelier on Wednesday, February 2, at 10 o'clock, for the purpose of considering and advancing the best interests of the cause in this State, in view of the constitutional amendment proposed by the council of censors. The convention will be addressed by several ladies and prominent gentlemen of this State, and by William Lloyd Garrison, Julia Ward Howe and Rev. Ada C. Bowles of Massachusetts; Lucy Stone and Henry B. Blackwell of New Jersey, and Mary A. Livermore of Illinois. A public meeting will also be held the evening before the convention, which will be addressed by some of the eminent speakers above named. The Hutchinson family will be present and sing their woman suffrage songs. The Vermont Central, Passumpsic, Rutland and Burlington and Bennington and Rutland lines of railroad will extend the courtesy of free return checks, provided they shall be applied for by twenty-five or more persons paying full fare one way over an average distance of each of their respective roads, which will be determined by the secretary.

C. W. Willard,	James Hutchinson, Jr.,
George H. Bigelow,	Charles Reed,
Newman Weeks,	Jonathan Ross,
James S. Peck.Ex. Com. Vermont Woman Suffrage Association.[195]

Montpelier, January 10, 1870.

It is a noticeable fact that the movement for the enfranchisement of woman in Vermont was inaugurated wholly by men. Not a woman was on its official board, nor was there one to speak in the State. Men called the first woman's rights convention, and chose Hon. Charles Reed of Montpelier as its presiding officer, as well as president of the State association.

However, these gentlemen invited ladies from other States, and a series of meetings[196] was inaugurated through the chief towns and cities of Vermont. The speakers[197] were heartily welcomed at some points and rudely received at others. The usual "free-love" cry was started by some of the opposition papers—a cry that like "infidel" in the anti-slavery days, oft' times frightened even the faithful from their propriety. Henry B. Blackwell came to the rescue, and ably answered the Vermont Watchman:

The Vermont Watchman evades the discussion of the question whether women shall be entitled to vote, by raising false issues. The editor asserts that "many of the advocates of suffrage have thrown scorn upon marriage and upon the Divine Word." That assertion we denounced as an unfounded and wicked calumny. We also objected to it as an evasion of the main question. Thereupon the Watchman, instead of correcting its mistake and discussing the question of suffrage, repeats the charge, and seeks to sustain it by garbled quotations and groundless assertions, which we stigmatized accordingly. The Watchman now calls upon us to retract the stigma. We prefer to prove that our censure is deserved, and proceed to do so.

The first quotation of the Watchman is from an editorial in the Woman's Journal, entitled "Political Organization." The object of which was to show the propriety of doing what the Watchman refuses to do—viz.: of discussing woman suffrage upon its own merits. It showed the unfairness of complicating the question with other topics upon which friends of woman suffrage honestly differ. It regretted that "many well-meaning people insist on dragging in their peculiar views on theology, temperance, marriage, race, dress, finance, labor, capital—it matters not what." It condemned "a confusion of ideas which have no logical connection," and protested "against loading the good ship, Woman Suffrage, with a cargo of irrelevant opinions." The Watchman cites this article as an admission that some of the friends of suffrage advocate free-love. Not at all. The editor of the Watchman is himself one of the well-meaning people alluded to. He insists on dragging in irrelevant theological and social questions. He refuses to confine himself to the issue of suffrage. The Watchman quotes a single sentence of the following statement:

The advocates of woman's equality differ utterly upon every other topic. Some are abolitionists, others hostile to the equality of races. Some are evangelical Christians; others Catholics, Unitarians, Spiritualists, or Quakers. Some hold the most rigid theories with regard to marriage and divorce; others are latitudinarian on these questions. In short, people of the most opposite views agree in desiring to establish woman suffrage, while they anticipate very different results from the reform, when effected.

The above is cited as evidence against us. How so? A man may hold "latitudinarian theories in regard to marriage and divorce" without "throwing scorn upon the marriage relation," or having the slightest sympathy with free-love. For instance: The present law of Vermont is latitudinarian is these very particulars. It grants divorce for many other causes than adultery. Measured by the more conservative standard of Henry Ward Beecher and Mary A. Livermore, it allows divorce upon insufficient grounds. This law represents the public sentiment of a majority of the people of Vermont. Will the Watchman assert that the people of Vermont "throw scorn on the marriage relation"? Or that he is in "low company" because he is surrounded by the citizens of a State who entertain views upon the marriage relation less rigid than his own? Our indignant protest against the injustice of the common law, which subjects the person, property, earnings and children of married women to the irresponsible control of their husbands, is not a protest against marriage. It is a vindication of marriage, against the barbarism of the law which degrades a noble and life-long partnership of equals into a mercenary and servile relation between superior and dependant.

The Watchman assails prominent supporters of woman suffrage, and misquotes and misrepresents them. Because Theodore Tilton is unwilling "that men or women shall be compelled to live together as husband and wife against the inward protest of their own souls," therefore he is charged with advocating free-love. Is it possible that the editor regards such a relation of protest and disgust as consistent with the unity of Christian marriage? Is it right that a pure and noble man, the tender husband of a happy wife, the loving father of affectionate children, should be thus causelessly traduced for showing that the essential fact of marriage is in that unity of soul which is recognized and affirmed by the outward form? When the Watchman undertakes to brand men and women of irreproachable character for an intellectual difference, he is engaged in a very unworthy business. When he charges immorality upon the New York Independent and infidelity upon John Stuart Mill, he forgets that his readers have minds of their own.

But, suppose it were true that newspapers and individuals who believe in woman suffrage held objectionable views on other subjects, what has this to do with the merit of the proposed reform? There are impure and intemperate men in the Republican party. Is the Republican party therefore "low company"? There are brutal and ignorant and disloyal men in the Democratic party. Does this prove that Dr. Lord and every other Democrat in the State of Vermont is brutal and ignorant and disloyal? The Supreme Court of the United States has just decided that a divorce obtained under the laws of Indiana is legal and binding in every other State. In thus affirming Mrs. McFarland's right to marry Mr. Richardson, has the Supreme Court of the United States sanctioned free-love? Will the Watchman call Chief-Justice Chase and the Supreme Court free-lovers? We have very little hope that the Watchman will treat this question with fairness or candor. Our cause is too strong. The argument from reason, from revelation, from nature, from history, is on our side. The Watchman is fighting against the Declaration of Independence, the bill of rights of the State of Vermont, and the principles of representative government. No wonder that it raises false issues. No wonder that it evades the question.

H. B. B.

The following editorial in the Woman's Journal, from the pen of Mary A. Livermore, does not give a very rose-colored view of the reception of the Massachusetts missionaries on their first advent into Vermont:

The Vermont constitutional convention has rejected a proposition to give the ballot to woman, by a vote of 231 to 1. It flouted all discussion of the question, and voted it down with the utmost alacrity. No one cognizant of the bigotry, narrowness and general ignorance that prevail there will be surprised at this result. It is not a progressive State, but the contrary. Great stress has been laid on the fact that "Vermont never owned a slave"—and from this it has been argued that the Green Mountain State is and has been especially liberty-loving. But during the two brief visits we made last winter, we were told again and again, by Vermont men, that the only reason for the non-introduction of slavery was the impracticability of that form of labor among the Green Mountains—that slavery could never have been made profitable there, and that this, and not principle and heroic love of freedom, prevented Vermont from ever being a slave State. Nowhere, not even in the roughest and remotest West, have we met with such vulgar rudeness, ill-manners and heroic lying as we encountered in Vermont. The lecturers who were invited into the State by the Vermont Woman Suffrage Association, composed wholly of men, were in many instances left unsupported by them, allowed to meet the frequently rough audiences as best they could, to pay their own bills, and to manage the campaign as they might. At the very first intimation of opposition on the part of the Montpelier Argus, the Watchman and the Burlington Free Press—an unworthy trio of papers that appear to control the majority—many members of the State association showed the "white feather," and either apologetically backed out of the canvass, or ignominiously kept silent in the background. There was, therefore, nothing like a thorough discussion of the question, no fair meeting of truth and error, not even an attempt to canvass the State. For, not ambitious to waste their efforts on such flinty soil, the men and women who were invited to labor there shook off the dust (snow) of Vermont from their feet, and turned to more hopeful fields of labor.

Let it not be supposed, however, that this vote of the delegates of the constitutional convention is any indication of the sentiment of the women on this question. The fact that 231 women of lawful age, residents of Brattleborough, and 96 of Newfane, sent a petition for woman suffrage, with their reasons for asking it, to Charles K. Field, delegate from that town to the constitutional convention; that petitions from other hundreds of women have been forwarded to congress, praying for a sixteenth amendment; that, by letters and personal statements, we know the most intelligent and thoughtful women everywhere rebel against the State laws whose heathenism, despotism and absurdity were so well shown by Mrs. Nichols in 1845—all these facts are proofs that the sentiment of Vermont women is not represented by the constitutional convention now in session at Montpelier.—[M. A. L.

August 12, 1871, our Burlington correspondent says:

While conventions, picnics and bazar meetings, in the cause of woman suffrage, have been held in our sister States, an event has very quietly occurred with us which we deem an important step in the right direction, viz.: the admission of women to the University. By an almost unanimous vote of the corporation, a few conservatives opposing it, the matter was referred to the faculty, who are understood to be heartily in favor of the "new departure." The college that has thus thrown its doors wide open to all, is the University of Vermont and State Agricultural College, founded by the munificence of General Ira Allen in 1791. It commenced operations in 1800; the Federal troops used its buildings for barracks in the war of 1812; the buildings (and library) were burned in 1824, and reconstructed in the following year, when the corner-stone was laid by General Lafayette. It sent forth nearly all its sons to the great rebellion. Indeed, at one time its condition served to remind one of the lines of Holmes—

"Lord, how the Senior knocked about
That Freshman class of one."

It has graduated such men as the late Senator Collamer, John G. Smith, president of the Northern Pacific Railroad; William G. T. Shedd, the learned theologian; the late Henry J. Raymond of the New York Times; John A. Kasson of Iowa, Frederick Billings, and a host of others, eminent in all the walks of life. Its late president, who was an "Angell from Providence," and has just been elected president of Michigan University, is heartily in favor of the movement, and the president-elect, Matthew H. Buckham, is no less so. With its new president and its "new departure" the future bids fair even to outshine the past.

It may be well to inquire the reason why a college located in a State regarded by outsiders "as the most conservative of the Union on the woman suffrage question," should take a step so far in advance of what has been deemed the prevailing sentiment. Editors who have been battling the new reform with a zeal equaled only by that manifested against abolitionism a few years since, can see no necessary connection between the new movement and the general cause of woman's emancipation. Whether necessary or not, there is a practical connection between them which is being felt more and more every day. I assert, with no fear of contradiction by any observing man, that Vermont is no more committed against woman suffrage than any other State in the East, and the fact that but one man in our late convention voted to extend the right of suffrage to all, can well be explained when we consider the manner of choosing delegates by towns; one town, for instance, with twelve voters, having the same voice in the representation that this city has with 1,500. With a popular vote upon that question the State would give such a majority as would fairly astonish all those who regarded the late convention as a complete demolition of the "reformers."

St. Andrew.

The following criticism of the Rev. Mr. Holmes, from the pen of a woman, shows the growing self-assertion of a class hitherto held in a condition of subordination by clerical authority. Such tergiversation in the pulpit as his has done much to emancipate woman from the reverence she once felt for the teaching of those supposed to be divinely ordained of heaven:

Benson, Vt., June 20, 1871.

I have heard it stated from the pulpit within a year that the woman suffrage question in Vermont is dead. Well, we believe in the resurrection. Week by week this question of the hour and of the age confronts those who claim to have given it decent burial. The same clergyman who pronounced it dead has since spoken of it as one of the "growing evils of the times," and in this beautiful summer weather he has felt called upon to preach another sermon, ostensibly on "marriage," really upon this "dead question," dragging it out to daylight again, that we might see how easily he could bury it fifty fathoms deep—with mud. It reminded me of Robert Laird Collier's sermon, "The Folly of the Woman Movement," in its logic and its spirit. Mr. Collier and our Mr. Holmes see but one thing in all this struggle for truth and justice, and that is "free-love." Here are some specimens of Mr. Holmes' assertions:

The advocates of woman's rights want, not the ballot so much as the dissolution of the marriage tie. They propose to form a tie for the term of five, six or seven years. Mark the men or women who are the most strenuous advocates of woman suffrage. They are irreligious and immoral.

Who are more strenuous advocates of woman suffrage than Mrs. Julia Ward Howe, Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe, Mrs. Isabella Beecher Hooker, Mrs. Lucy Stone, Mrs. Lucretia Mott, Mrs. Livermore, T. W. Higginson, Henry Ward Beecher, Bishop Simpson, Governor Claflin, Gilbert Haven, Wendell Phillips, and scores of others whose lives are as pure and intellects as fine as his who dares stand in the sacred desk and call these persons "irreligious and immoral"? His argument seems to be like this: Some advocates of woman suffrage are in favor of easy divorces. These men and women advocate woman suffrage; therefore these men and women are in favor of easy divorces. Or, to make the matter still plainer, some ministers of the Gospel are immoral. Mr. H. is a minister of the Gospel; therefore Mr. H. is immoral. The method of reasoning is the same, but it don't sound quite fair and honorable, does it?

"In our land woman is a queen; she is loved and cared for," says Mr. Holmes. In sight from the window where I write is a sad commentary upon this. One of these queens, so tenderly cared for, is hoeing corn, while her five-months-old baby—the youngest of nine children—lies on the grass while she works. Her husband is away from home, but has left word for the "old woman" to "take care of the corn and potatoes, for he has to support the family." When they are out of meat, she must go out washing and earn some, for "he has to support the family," and cannot have her idle. Not long since they were planting corn together, she doing as much as he. At noon, although she had a pail of milk and another of eggs, he brought her the two hoes to carry home, as he could not be troubled with them. Had he ever read:

"I will be master of what is my own;
She is my goods, my chattels—
My horse, my ox, my ass, my anything"?

"No woman reaches such dignity as the New England wife and mother," says Mr. H. Is wifehood more honorable, or motherhood more sacred, in New England than in other places? Is to be a wife and mother, and nothing else, the sole end and aim of woman? Or is there not other work in God's universe which some woman may possibly be called upon to do? Is Florence Nightingale or Anna Dickinson less dignified than Mrs. John Smith, who happens physically to be the mother of half-a-dozen children, but mentally and morally is as much of a child as any of them?

"Woman has just the sphere she wants. She has more privileges than she could vote herself into," says Mr. H. Has she, indeed? I know women, who would gladly vote themselves into the privilege of having the custody of their own children, whose husbands are notoriously drunken and licentious. They are pure, good women, who, rather than part with their children, live on with men whose very breath is pollution. I know others who would like to vote themselves into the privilege of retaining their own hard earnings instead of having them sacrificed by a drunken husband. Widows have been literally turned out of doors after their husbands' death, and the property they had helped to accumulate divided among those who never earned it. Do you think such women would not change the laws of inheritance if they had the power?

"Husband and wife are one, hence one vote is sufficient," says Mr. H. Follow out the reasoning, if you please. "Both one," hence one dinner is sufficient, "both one," hence if a man is a member of a church his wife is also. In plain English, "the husband and wife are both one," and the husband is that one. Now in case that one should die, is it fair, or just, or fitting, that the widow—"the relict"—or, in the words of Mr. H., "the feminine spirit that has supplemented this masculine nature," whose hands have been tied all these years, should be called upon to pay taxes upon the share of property the law allows her? Taxation without representation was the immediate cause of the famous tea-party in Boston harbor, and, in fact, of a good many other unpleasant things that followed.

"Woman has just the sphere she wants," says Mr. H., closing the discussion. No, sir, she has not. Had those young ladies in Philadelphia who were studying medicine, and were insulted day after day by the male medical students, the sphere they wanted? Our American girls have been to Europe for the sake of pursuing their studies in medicine, and have met with kindness and courtesy, while in this land, where they are called "queens," they received only hisses. Last winter Governor Claflin of Massachusetts—one of those "irreligious and immoral" advocates of woman suffrage—reminded the gentlemen of that State who claim to be woman's representatives in the legislature, "that a wife in that State is deprived of the free control of property that was her own before marriage, and is denied an equal right in the property accumulated during the marriage partnership; that a married mother has no legal right to her child; and that a widow has not equal rights with a widower." When woman has the sphere she wants, these things will be changed.

As a majority of the men in this community are opposed to woman suffrage, I will relate one circumstance that will do to "point a moral or adorn a tale." Of course, the voters in this or any other place always elect their best men to hold office, and the board of selectmen would naturally be the very wisest and best, the "crÈme de la crÈme." Now it so happens that one selectman being away from home, there was not enough arithmetic left with the other two to make out the tax-bills for the town, and they hired a woman, the mother of two children, to do it for them. It certainly took more of her time than it would for her to have walked across the street and voted for men who could make out their own tax-bills. Then arithmetic is not a womanly accomplishment, like tatting, crocheting, etc. These things sink into our hearts, and will bear fruit in due season.

Sarah A. Gibbs.

In 1877, July 21, Miss Thyrza F. Pangborn, for the last six years the capable and efficient recorder in the probate office of Burlington, was appointed and sworn as a notary public. In a letter of December 7, 1872, our correspondent says:

In the year 1870, the world was somewhat startled by the fact that in the constitutional convention, held that year in Vermont, but one vote was cast for the enfranchisement of woman; and no one wonders that the friends of that movement exclaimed, "Can any good come out of—Vermont"? Yesterday the first biËnnial session of the legislature closed its session of fifty-seven days. A bill has been pending in each House, giving female tax-payers a right to vote at all school-district meetings. It was advocated by Mr. Butterfield, one of the leading members of the House, in an able and learned speech, and received 64 votes to 103 against. Is not that doing well for such a staid old State as Vermont, and one where the enemies of equal suffrage supposed, two years since, that the measure was indefinitely postponed? But this is not all. The measure was introduced in the Senate, composed of thirty members, who are supposed to be the balance-wheel of the General Assembly. It was warmly discussed by several Senators, and the vote taken, when there were three members absent, resulting in, yeas 13, nays 14. Had the Senate been full, the vote would have been, yeas 14,[198] nays 16. A change of one of the "no" votes would have carried the measure, as the lieutenant-governor, who presides in the Senate, would have given the casting vote in its favor.

The supporters of the measure included some of the ablest members of the Senate, among them the chairmen of the very important Committees on Finance, Claims, Education, Agriculture, Manufactures, Railroads and Printing.

Following the defeat of the above-mentioned bill came up a measure granting to women the same right to vote as men have in all elections everywhere in the State. It received the support of all who voted for the school measure, save two, Mr. Mason and Mr. Rogers, who prefer to see the first tried as an experiment in the school meetings. You thus perceive that twelve out of our thirty grave and reverend Senators are real out-and-out equal suffrage men. Verily, the world moves! Another year, 1874, we hope will carry off the measure. Meanwhile, we say, three cheers for old Vermont, and glory enough for one day!

St. Andrew.

Burlington, Vt.

In 1880 the School Suffrage bill passed the Vermont House of Representatives, with only four dissenting votes. When the bill came to a third reading and only four men stood up for the negative, there was so marked an expression of derision that the speaker called for "order," and reminded the House that "no man was to be scorned for voting alone any more than with a crowd." The action and the voting came cheerily. More than one man, to the objection of "an entering wedge," said "he was ready to grant the whole." The bill passed the Senate triumphantly and was approved by the governor, December 18, 1880:

Women shall have the same right to vote as men have, in all school-district meetings and in the election of school commissioners in towns and cities, and the same right to hold office relating to school affairs.

An item in the Woman's Journal, from Vergennes, March 22, 1881, says:

At the city election to-day General J. H. Lucia, a staunch friend of woman suffrage, was elected mayor, and principally through his management Miss Electa S. Smith has been chosen to the office of city clerk, which office he has held for the past two years. The legislature of 1880 authorized the election of women to the offices of superintendent of schools and town clerk, and some of the friends of the cause were disposed to try the working of the law here. They selected a candidate whose ability, qualifications and thorough fitness all had to concede, and against whom the only objection that could be raised was her being a woman. It took the conservatives some time to get over their surprise at the first suggestion of her name, but they admitted the propriety of the thing and gallantly lent a hand, so that when the election came all the candidates who had been talked about were conspicuous by their absence, and Miss Smith was elected by acclamation. Surely the world does move.

Springfield, February 7, 1884.

Miss Lydia Putnam, Brattleboro', Vt.:

Your letter is at hand. I think but few women have, as yet, availed themselves of the privilege of voting in school meetings in this State, and I am not able to say what the effect upon our schools has been up to the present time.

Justus Dartt.

Very respectfully,

Notwithstanding the above reply from the state-superintendent of the public schools of Vermont, the Associated Press reports of every year[199] since 1881 make mention of women being elected to school offices in the various towns and counties of the State.