xt70rx937t9n_1 https://exploreuk.uky.edu/dips/xt70rx937t9n/data/mets.xml https://exploreuk.uky.edu/dips/xt70rx937t9n/data/46m4.dao.xml unknown 13.63 Cubic Feet 34 boxes, 2 folders, 3 items In safe - drawer 3 archival material 46m4 English University of Kentucky The physical rights to the materials in this collection are held by the University of Kentucky Special Collections Research Center.  Contact the Special Collections Research Center for information regarding rights and use of this collection. Laura Clay papers Temperance. Women -- Political activity -- Kentucky. Women's rights -- Kentucky. Women's rights -- United States -- History. Women -- Suffrage -- Kentucky. Women -- Suffrage -- United States. Sallie Clay Bennett (sister) correspondence text Sallie Clay Bennett (sister) correspondence 2020 https://exploreuk.uky.edu/dips/xt70rx937t9n/data/46m4/Box_1/Folder_1/Multipage1.pdf 1861-1924 1924 1861-1924 section false xt70rx937t9n_1 xt70rx937t9n  

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 V___;Warren, 0hic.Mar.8th,li
5y dear Sallie, ,
four letter 0! the 7th inst. is Just received.1n reply i will
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 189 N,J ”t., Lexington, Ky.
June 5a, I919.
ﬂy dear Sallie,
Yell, the inthony'ameé mentlns passed the “enate:

I thought you would be interested to knmwhow I would act, now that the
submission to the states is an.&3compliehei fact; so I am writing to say
that I have just iuaished two letters, one to Mrs.Breckinridge and the
other to Mrs.Foster, secretary of ﬁraFayette P.R.L.. telling them that I
withdraw from the Ientucky E.*.A. and resign my place on the E visory ﬁn

Board of the Ky.E.R.A. and my pussieacy of the Fayette E.R.A. I ex-

plain that as the Boarﬂs of ﬁne N?.T.¢.A and the Ky.i.?-A. have declared

in favor of ratificati>n of ﬁn “ﬁnanyannnhnent there is no longer any

consistency for a firm believer'in “tn rigmts, as I am. in remaining

in these associations, even though the: h as been no change in their
constitutions tO‘Mlich I subscribes.

I suppose you are busy with yrur hluc grass seed. I thank you fOr
your letter reminding me of the aggrosohing season; but Green had al—
ready agreed to striy mine for me on the terms of last year.

I am getting very anxious about hetrﬁng from annie. Ins trial
was to come off jay 26th, and I have been expecting a letter daily ever
since; but I have heard nothing in any way. If you have heard, please
write me a few lines to tell no what has happened.

I expect to come over about the I6 or 77th of this month to see
about cutting my Wheat. I have some things in which I am much interested
here, so that unless it is necessary I w 11 not come sooner. I have
not yet got any one to out it for me; so if you know any arrangement
I can make, let me know, miongh I have written to hiddel and also to
Greer to let me hear also. Green says Jane will not come toll July,
so I will stay down on the farm until she comes. I hOpe jury and all
of you remain well. Love to all.

Your affectionate sister
I

 

  

  

  

 Lazinzton, 7v

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Tn3rud1 nxvs inn, 7? T? 485 J’- EB 30
'E19 *Eexni“_ie. ~ .jfn , ﬂ 7 ' 7 In ?;‘. ‘74tﬂ1071t
,.'.r .f‘iﬁprwr-
Q9 vies—m?aniﬁwntf hut
vr‘n;c._ i
Inger in Touisville have ﬁnniged to kk
Riffpruﬁ‘a. tun fn‘eizr‘xv'a} nmenciznont £1318, that
' k) r

Then thc Fa*isln+nr9 meets. Th9? huve iﬁxi
fonxress submits the Federal nmendnent or édﬁoursns

bofova {Leg d ciﬁe to ask for a state amendment. That is, they are try—

ing to told in their own hnnﬂs the deciaion whether ever to submit a

saute amenﬁwcnt. MTG.Breekinridge is very mush vexed; but I do not see
nun no t: heln herpelf. I shall tell her our plans explicitly
lunar, hat have not yet fonn suitabla Opportunity.
have a.ked a few of the olﬁer snffragists to go with us.- Hrs.marv x
ﬂorton, lrs.?reston, Wrs.ﬁarhison, Hrs.MnFuaid, IrS.Foster , Mrs.ﬂld-
Mr8.0ldh.m is going to try to get some of the suffragists from
jain us. Vverv one seems to think it is the rirdt sor"
T have not yet asked for a hearing, but I think it
be granted; if not, the neLS§ﬂpGT notice we shall he ‘ ‘ 'w at
l anal; ask (the? Stffragists to ’_i‘ 1‘ a. ‘.
30 us much good.
Since_liss Gordon thinks you meant your money for the dues c' a
branch I vould let it stay that may: and if you choose you can g t

members in time for the Eemocratic convention.

 

 2.

ta Make all of your glans tr name 319? unﬂ to hrinw 0+

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 89 N.Hill ”t., Lexington, 3y.
Jan,tknd, I9I7.
dy deer Pister,
I received your letter ‘aturday; but as I was much
occupied, I could not anster it sooner than todzy, as you asked me.
You ask me to ”help to get some bills introduced into (ongress fro
the protection of “omen in voting at Federal elections under the 14th pmen
ment'.
Ihile you do not Say so, I SULpOSB you mean bills founded on
the argument you use. @t the risk of repeating that I have said to
you before, I till say that I do not think your argument conclusive.
The Supreme Court has discussed and decided that the right of suffrage
of any sort is ”not one of the necessary nightsxand privileges and immu—
nities guaranteed to citizens by the 14th mendment“. If it is not one
of the ”necessary privileges and immunities it is of no great mpottance
that , by your inferences, they have since decided that the right to
vote fer some citizens is derived from the Federal ondtitution.
I do not think your quotaticn from Judge Gray is conclusive, either, As
I take it, Judge Cray meant that when certan citizens had been granted
the right to vote at W.?.“lecyions their right to do so could be protected
by the W.P.Constitution. But as vomen have not been granted that right
this is no orofit to them. Even if you are correct in what you think
Judge Gray meant, yet other people do not take the same View as he, and
as he never had the authority to decide shat the Qupreme Court meant, it
would be necessary that other peoyle besides himself should take that View
I probably have said all this, and more, to show why I do not coincide

with your views; so now I shall amplify only to say that I think there

are some practical political reasons why it is not desirable to try to
0

get woman suffrage on the I4th fmendment. The I4th and 15th ﬁmendments

 

 2.
are exceedingly obnoxi us to the “out ern “emocratic ftates. Y‘ven en.
Lodge has recently publicly stated that they were great failures in

some important particulars. Vow to attempt to enlarge the force of

the 14th by a construction which has been denied by the ¢upreme Crurt,

and which touhd have almost as much effeft as a new federal 'mendment, nib
with the further disadvantage than if such constructions can be put upon
it the country has no security against some new and unexpected devel-
otments at any time, seems to me tkvld ar use pOpular objectirns far

more vigorous than the S.A.Anthony 'mendment, EniCh mould give comnlete
suffrage at once,tithout further complications. ts you know, he have no
pouer to force Longress to, pass a law .hich is perfectly clear to he vith
in their power. How much less coulo we wersuaue them to tame a risk of
cussing that might be an unconstitutiznal law, and ;hicu is cert in to
rouse the most violent OngSition and rhetntment among :qe constitutients
of many% fhe members.

i
If we should try to frame a bill .hich is f unded on some argument

different from "ours, I shall simply say tkat I do not know of any other
which is now used. I think the suffragists generally have abandoned
hope of getting any help from the Iéth *mendment. ﬁll these reasons
make it impossible for me to comply with your request.I will only add
that I have been scrupulous in avoiding any antagonism to your bill in
my attempts to draw attentionto the claim f(unded on the let ’rticle of
the Federal aonstitution. The Bill introduced by ”en. Owen is still be-
fore Lhis aongress; though it seems that ”en.0wen is not working to push

it as he said he tas ready to do at ﬁt.Louis. I suppose he is not wil-

ling to push it unless the large body of suffragists urge him to do so;

and the Iational seems bent only of the H.B.Anthony ﬂmendment. jersonalir

I intend to await the developments of this ongress. I feel it almost

hOpeless to.fight for anything the National does not sustain. “ossibly,

if it finds it cannot do anything with the Anthony ‘mendment, it may be

 

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14) not think that many persons know that in 1871, Miss Susan B.
Anthony and some other ladies claimed that under our Federal Constitution
as altered by the adoption of its 14th Amendment, women had a legal right to
vote at public elections, and petitioned Congress to make a federal law pro-
tecting them in the exercise of that right.

So I now write to you, and to other members of our National American
Woman Suffrage Association, to call your attention to the above mentioned
fact, and to some dec1s1ons of the Supreme Court of the United States that
bear upon it, in the hope that I may thereby induce you to join with me and
some other ladies, in signing a Memorial in which we request our National
American Woman Sufl‘rage Association to adopt at its next annual convention
the same Resolution in regard to the 14th Amendment of our National Consti-
tution that it adopted at its annual convention of 1914 and of 1916.

A Resolution which said:——“We petition Congress to protect women
againt State denial of the right of citizens of the United States to vote for
Members of Congress, Presidential Electors and United States Senators in
the State wherein they reside, by making federal laws in pursuance of that
clause of the 14th Amendment of our National Constitution which says:—
No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or
immunities of citizens of the United States.’ ’

Miss Susan B. Anthony tells us in her Wmoan Suffrage History, Vol. I,
pages 497 and 498, that on December 12, 1871, she, Elizabeth Cady Stanton,
Isabella Beecher Hooker, Elizabeth L. Blanden, Olympia Brown and Josephine
S. Grif'fen, “united in a Memorial, which was presented in the Senate and refer-
red to the Judiciary Committee, asking for a recognition of the rights of
women under the 14th Amendment” . . . . . That this Memorial was
addressed to “The Honorable Senate and House of Representatives of the
United States in Congress assembled,” and read as followsz—“The under—
signed citizens of the United States, believing that under the present Federal
Constitution all women who are citizens of the United States have the right to
vote, pray your honorable body to enact a law during the present session,
that shall assist and protect them in the exercise of that right.”

The “14th Amendment” referred to in the above mentioned Memorial is

 

 that clause of this Amendment which says :—“N 0 State shall make or enforce
any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the
United States.”

And in 1875, the Supreme Court of the United States decided in the ease
of Mrs. Virginia L. Minor that this clause of the 14th Amendment did not
annul the word “male” in the Constitutions of our States which confined the
right to vote for Members of Congress and Presidential Electors to men, and
thereby enable women to have a legal right to vote for these federal ofﬁcers,
as counsel for Mrs. Minor claimed that it did.

And the Court decided this, by holding or deciding in its Slaughter-House
cases decision of 1873, that the above quoted clause of the 14th Amendment
only prohibited States from making or enforcing laws which deprived citizens
of such rights as “owed their existence to the Federal Government, its
national character, its Constitution or its laws,” and then deciding that the
right to vote for Members of Congress and Presidential Electors did not owe
its existence to our Federal Constitution, by deciding that the Constitution of
the United States did not confer the right of suffrage upon “any one,” by
using the below quoted words in the conclusion of its Minor vs. Happersett
decision of 1875 :———“Being unanimously of the opinion that the Constitution of
the United States does not confer the right of suffrage upon any one, and
that the Constitutions and laws of the several States which commit that
important trust to men alone, are not necessarily void, we afﬁrm the judgment
of the Court below.”

But the Supreme Court held in the first part of its Minor vs, Happersett
decision of 1875, that the above quoted clause of the 14th Amendment “pro-
hibited” our States form making or enforcing any law which deprived female
citizens of the United States of any right that did owe its existence to our
Federal Constitution.

And in 1884, this Court decided that the right to vote for Members of
Congress and Presidential Electors owed its existence to our Federal Con-
stitution, by deciding in the case of Ex Parte Yarbrough of 1884, that the
right to vote for these federal ofﬁcers was secured to citizens by the Original
Constitution of the United States.

So the Supreme Court has now held in its combined Minor vs. Happersett
and Ex Parte Yarbrough decisions that the 14th Amendment “prohibited”
our States from making or enforcing any law which deprives female citizens
of the United States of a right to vote for Members of Congress and Presi-
dential Electors.

And since the right of private citizens to vote for United States Senators
owes its existence to the 17th Amendment of our Nationtl Constitution, the
14th Amendment prohibits our States from making or enforcing any law
which deprives women of a legal right to vote for United States Senators,
as well as of a legal right to vote for Members of Congress and Presidential
Electors.

And by doing this, the 14th Amendment has annulled the word “male” in
the Constitutions of the majority of our States which conﬁned the right to
vote for Members of Congress, Presidential Electors and United States Sen-
ators to men, and thereby left their women in possession of a legal right to
vote for these federal ofﬁcers. Just as the removal of the word “male” from
the Constitutions of eleven of our States as a qualiﬁcation for voting, has

left their women in possession of a legal right to vote for Members of Con—
gress, Presidential Electors and United States Senators.

Because the 14th Amendment is a part of our Federal Constitution, which
is the supreme law of this land, “any thing in the Constitution or law of any
State to the contrary notwithstanding,” as its 6th Article expressly declares.

The reason that women cannot exercise their legal right to vote for the
above named federal ofﬁcers in the majority of our States at the present time,
is because these States are enforcing laws which forbid their ofﬁcers to reg-
ister the names of women as legal voters at federal as well as at state elec-
tions. And because Congress has refused or neglected to make federal laws
under the 14th Amendment to protect their women in exercising their legal
right to vote at federal elctions, as our National American Women Suffrage
Association has petitioned Congress to do.

I say, as this Association has petitioned Congress to do, because soon
after the Supreme Court decided in the case of Ex Parte Yarbrough of 1884,
that the right of citizens to vote for Members of Congress and Presidential
Electors owed its existence to our Federal Constitution, Miss Anthony ap—
pointed me chairman of the “Federal Suffrage Committee” of our National
Amrican Woman Suffrage Association, and made it the duty of this Com-
mittee to petition Congress to make federal laws under the 14th Amendment
to protect women against State denial of the right of citizens of the United
States to vote at federal elections in the State wherein they reside.

And from that day down to the present time this Association has con—
tinued to petition Congress to do women this justice.

We have recently been advised to stop petitioning Congress to make
federal laws under the 14th Amendment to protect women against State de-
nial of the right of citizens of the United States to vote at federal elections
in the State wherein they reside, and to go to asking the Supreme Court to
protect women against State dnial of this right.

But Congress made federal laws to protect colored men in exercising the
rights that were guaranteed to them against State denial by the 13th and
15th Amendments of our National Constitution, and the 14h Amendment is
like these two, in that it provides that Congress must enforce its provisions
by “appropriate legislation.”

And the Supreme Court has declared this to be a fact, by using the below
quoted words in speaking of the 14th, 13th and 15th Amendments in its Ex
Parte Virginia decision 1879: “It is not said the judicial power of the General
Government shall extend to enforcing the prohibitions and to protecting the
rights and immunities guaranteed. It is not said that branch of the Govern-
ment shall be authorized to declare void, any action of a State in violation of
the prohibitions. It is the power of Congress which has been enlarged. Con-
gress is authorized to enforce the prohibitions by appropriate legislation.
Some legislation is contemplated to make the Amendments fully effective.”

Hoping that I may receive a favorable reply from you, I am,

Very sincerely yours,

Richmond, Kentucky, February 22, 1917.

 

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believed it scald be a telling policy if “e made a strong aypeel to

men of all yarties to be loyal to their certy oledges and make woman

Cuffregexnn; Issac r garty issue, .nereoy tiey could surely min at

the bolls and relieve women of tne aardsnigs of struggling for the
rignts solemnly uledged to ;nem, end aid the burden of that to
e; are nlreeey bearing from the mar; that, us .re.”ilson bro
out, it is a war exigency, end tie men ought not to require
efforts from “omen. 8y tnis means, he t‘uld esczie large
be mucn more wertrin of victory.
: .Qontn.:niid sne funi‘tle 2r”M\1M:Li l e LXWV; e bill.cxruan 1n end
introduce ghen she received e let:er iron rs. e.tt a king
tint 7y.snrulc not ask for it; so sne held it back till after tnis
JCﬁrd meeting.
Next day 1e frund tnet j g ' ; ~5 a sick child, u.; o ale not
come; i -ie ‘ . . -e"' '° 2nd 0 uld not come. rs.Jinnn and
‘rs. 'niteside O‘TC in for u lit;
for some months
:mying C "'». [.2 vi"? w ax only a short time. Vcither
frs. W1 erson nor ﬁrs. “ost came. , y vould not nave hzd e Quorum ex-
cept that we agreed that we ,r I ;=k the votes of “eseemes ‘
an Tanning over the 8phone. i u ' immediately
tn me in cytosing culling an emergency convention. They cleined that
sufficient notice Hid been given at lexingt on tlut such a c nv:‘n:ion
i b.t be 0:11 ed. However, I got the ruling that only delegates elec-
ted to the c'nventio n at Lexington, even if taey did not go, tere eli-
gible for tee emergency 0 nventien. They seem willing to meet in
Frankfort, though I clzi imef they ounnt to meet in Lexington. Hovever,
cytosition aquld be useless, and only ceuse friction, I
voted”no ” to two emergency convention. Then we deci—

mould first got a vote by mail to eligible delegates, :83-

(Over?

 

 3. i- v ‘
IN
_ing postponement as follows;Moved; That the intent and purpose of the
above motion to call an Tmergency Convention shall be accomplished tem-
porarily, if feasible, by a letter sent by the president of the
Ky.E.R.A. to every delegate entitled to vote at the Emergency Con-
vention, briefly stating the emergency which seems to call for further
consideration of the instruction of the annual convention of I917 to
submit in the Ky. Legislature now in session bills to grant presiden-

tial suffrage; and to submit a state Constitutional Amendment; and to

postpone till the 15th of February action on these instructions, If

any further action be necessary, then to call a meeting of the Board!

I think they expect the majority vote to rescind the action of the
Lexington convention.
In the discussions, they noticed that I said that the question
now belonged to others besides the suffragists; and Mrs. Judah asked
me the direct question if I felt myself free to aid in a demend from
such persons in asking for a fulfillment of the party platforms. I an-
swered that she was asking me a personal question about what I
thought as an individual, but I answered that I would not feel free to
do so as an officer of the Ky.E.P.Asso., but that I did not think
my liberty of action as an individual was limited by what the A880.
might decide to do. w emphasized the fact that I considered the ac—
tions of the National as violating a clause in the constitutions which
if broken by one section of the Asso. ceased to be binding upon the
other. I think they were somewhat surprised by my statement, though I
do not think it will change their resolution. However, other things
may happen between now and the I5th of Febr., and I am going to hope
that Justei counsels will prevail. I moved a resolution that if the
Federal Amendment passed the U.S.Senate the Ky.E.R.A. should immedi-
ately try to have it ratified. It seems this was overlooked in the

Lexington convention; and by my motion I showed that I intended to be

 

 '.

4. ‘ f i

faithfull to the rights of those who believe in the Federal Amend. only

Just as I am demanding that others should be fair to those who are
in favor of State action.

This was about all the important busines transacted. I was made
chairman of the Prize Contests, and I am going to conduct tham like
Mrs.Roark has done in the Hormal at Vichmond.

Give my love to all. I hope you and Mary are both well. I was
glad to be assured by Helen that you considered you had recovered from
the Sprain you got in Washington?

Affectionately your sister,

 

  

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