May 18, 1872
THE TRUE REPUBLIC.
A SPEECH BY ELIZABETH CADY STANTON.
The two great nations in the world to-day, still in the act of growth, are Russia and America. With their vast extent of territory and rapidly increasing population, it is almost impossible for the human mind to estimate the grandeur of their destiny.
All the other nations in the globe have reached the acme of their power; some are already hastening to their downfall, because, like the despotisms, monarchies and empires of the past, one and all are based on the old feudal idea that might makes right. In spite of Russia’s gaining power and greatness, if she continues to center all the authority of society in a single arm, she too must share the same fate with those that have gone before her. For there is but one safe and stable basis of national life; that is, the equality of all the citizens.
This is our American idea, and here we have undertaken the experiment of self-government, and it is well for every thoughtful citizen to consider all that the experiment involves. Without territorial annexation, we shall have at the end of this century one hundred million of people. With the purchase of territory now proposed, we shall add greatly to this number. Forty thousand Chinese are already on the Pacific coast, but the entering wedge of 400,000,000 behind them. Ignorance, poverty and vice from every quarter of the globe are following here, and all this mighty multitude are to be educated into the rights and responsibilities of self-government. When we consider how difficult it is to teach one individual man to govern himself, to study the laws of his being and conscientiously observe them, though he suffers in his own flesh the penalty of every violated law, we may begin to measure the magnitude of the work before us.
And there is no royal road to this result, but it is all to be accomplished by the slow, sure process of education.
Do we not need to this end the enlightened statesmanship, the religious earnestness, the moral power, the refined sentiments and affections of every thinking man and woman kindled to the highest pitch of enthusiastic patriotism for this work.
Wise thinkers are to-day considering the future of this nation and the probabilities of our children realizing what our fathers proposed; a government in which all citizens shall be free and equal.
Some doubt the possibility of such a fact, and declare the idea Utopian. Some say it is feasible, but only in a much higher development of the [human] race. Some say we have made the attempt and failed, and are now drifting towards centralization and Imperialism. But the philosopher, seeing that equality has been the one long struggle through the past, naturally infer that it must be the foundation of all true government, based on a great fact in human nature. We have not tried it yet, but are slowly struggling towards that idea; our experiment thus far has not been a failure, but as compared with nations that have gone before us, a grand success. We are not drifting toward centralization and the one man power but bravely working for the rights of the man, for individual sacredness and development. The world is done with royalty and aristocracy ; the industrial forces are everywhere organizing ; science and labor in the workshops of nature are to-day prying the sceptres that must soon rule the world. All these appearances of centralization are but the remnants of feudalism, to be thrown off in the new growth of the nation. The dangers many apprehend from the bribery and corruption of some of our caucuses and cabals, by which an imbecile Buchanan may be foisted upon the country to-day, and to-morrow a stolid Grant, as evidences of individual and party depravity, are lamentable enough ; but the fact that all this political infidelity is ridiculed, condemned, spurned, by the minds ; that the popular protests keep pace with the frauds, is evidence that the recuperative virtue of the people is strong enough to resist and right these incidental evils in the nation’s transition to higher freedom.
What we now need to meet the responsibilities of self-government, is the scientific education of the people. We must rid the minds of the American people of the idea that government is a machine carried on at Washington and the State capitals, and educate every father, mother, preacher, teacher, into the faith that they are part of the government, daily moulding themselves and the youth under their care for the high duties of American citizenship ; that the ideas of virtue, religion, honor, justice, taught in the pulpit, school-house, at the fireside, will crystalize, in another generation, in the statutes and constitutions of the State.
The time when women are to vote is so near at hand that I begin to feel more anxiety now about our wise use of the ballot than its possession, for if we vote as blindly as the masses of men do; like them, our condition will not be much improved. Having talked about the rights of suffrage for twenty years, I would suggest to you to-day all that you can do with it, all that need to be done in the state, the church, the school and the home; for remember, the ballot is the great regulating power by which all our political, religious, commercial, educational and social interests are decided. If you will consider with me as briefly as possible all the great national questions we are called on to settle in one day, you will perceive that it is no light matter to make wise laws, to assume the grave responsibilities of self-government, to legislate in the no distant future, for the mightiest nation in the globe.
True government is based on laws as certain and invariable as are the national sciences. It is as dangerous to trust the interests of a nation in the hands of ignorant rulers, as to turn children loose in a laboratory to compound chemicals and generate gasses. The result in the one case would be burnt fingers, disgusting odors, explosions, chaos; in the other, heavy taxes, protective tariffs, a rotten banking system, high rates of interest, a financial crash every ten years, justice bought and sold in the market place, bribery and corruption in the courts and every department of government; drunkenness and licentiousness licensed by the state, war, and a national debt, bloated wealth and gaunt poverty, side by side in our streets, a living contradiction of our theory of equality. When a Vanderbilt can make 20,000,000 in a day, when a Gould and Fisk can run an Erie railroad for years without a dividend, and the stockholders are powerless in our courts because the judges are bought up, it is time for the people to look into our financial and banking systems and into the kind of stuff of which our judicial executive and legislative officers are made.
We have already gone so far toward the realization of a true republic as to place the ballot in the hands of every man, the next step is to teach him how to use it, for a ballot without knowledge, is like a prayer without works. Self-government involves an understanding of principles, of measures rather than men or parties. Nothing can rescue power from the hands of the few but the education of the many; and nothing can secure this education to the many, like submitting to their decision, all acts of legislation. Wise men and women all over this land should be educating the enfranchised masses into a knowledge of the rights and responsibilities of self-government. We should assemble our workingmen together every evening in our school houses, churches, halls, and teach then the philosophy of these great questions of national life. It is folly to talk of self-government if the people are led by a few wily politicians. It is the result of this ignorance and indifference of the people, that representative government in this country has become the rule of a privileged few at the expense of the many. To prevent this, let every state so amend her constitution as to leave all local offices and legislation, as far possible, in the hands of the people of the several townships, counties and districts of the state; submitting all state and national acts to their ratification….
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