LETTER: Autograph letter signed to Helen Barker, September 28, 1890.
Congressman Thomas B. Reed to Anthony
on a Congressional vote for Women’s Rights
Reed, Thomas Brackett. Autograph letter signed, “TB Reed,” to Susan B. Anthony. Washington, D.C., 02/02/1884; one leaf; 7 ½ x 9 ½ inches; black ink on lined “House of Representatives” stationery; “Personal” written at top; creased where folded for mail; small closed tear at top fold; small spot of discoloration at bottom.
Congressional representative Thomas Brackett Reed writes to Anthony addressing what was apparently her earlier request repeat a Congressional vote, likely for its . Reed writes, in full:
I do not see any way in which we can be successful in redoing [?] the Special Committee Vote. It will only result in worse defeat; for people will be impatient at another attempt to take up their time. If there were any changes to record of such a number as would give any hope of success I would ask permission again of the […] rules, but I can’t ask again what I should be obliged to admit was the privilege of being beaten again.
Thomas B. Reed (1839-1902) was a U.S. Representative from Maine who went on to become the Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives from 1889–1891 and from 1895–1899. Reed was an incredibly powerful politician, remembered for his domineering leadership which resulted in increasing the scope of the Speaker’s power, thus altering the routine operations of the United States Congress. A vocal supporter of the women’s rights movement, Reed won Anthony’s admiration through his backing of the “Susan B. Anthony Amendment” (16th Amendment) from its initial Congressional introduction in 1878. In 1884, Reed drafted a report with several other Congress members as a response to the amendment’s failure to pass through Congress. The resulting report, a masterpiece of satire and logic, reads, in part:
If suffrage be a right, if it be true that no man has a claim to govern any other man except to the extent that the other man has a right to govern him, then there can be no discussion of the question of woman suffrage. No reason on earth can be given by those who claim suffrage as a right of manhood which does not make it a right of womanhood also… shall one-half the citizens of the United States who are not free be heard by the other half who govern the whole, on their petition to be allowed the exercise of their own judgment and conscience in making the laws which fix their destiny? It is no answer to this just demand to tell woman that in our opinion she has no right to vote; that she is unfit to vote; that she is too good or that she is too bad to vote; that she cannot fight, or that she is too much an angel or is incompetent; that not until they all desire to vote shall any one of them be allowed to vote; that we can perform that duty and exercise that right, and will discharge for her the functions of thought, conscience, and will.
(Sources: Grant, James. Mr. Speaker! The Life and Times of Thomas B. Reed. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2011; “History of Congressional Consideration of the Women's Suffrage Issue.” University of Missouri School of Law.)
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