Treacherous Texts: An Anthology of U.S. Suffrage Literature, 1846-1946

“Aunt Chloe’s Politics” (1871) “John and Jacob—A Dialogue on Woman’s Rights” (1885)

“AUNT CHLOE’S POLITICS” (1871) “JOHN AND JACOB—A DIALOGUE ON WOMAN’S RIGHTS” (1885) frances ellen watkins harper (1825–1911) A popular poet and author of Iola Leroy and other novels, Harper was one of the few black women to become involved with predominantly white women’s associations , including the AWSA and the National Council of Women. Her interest in suffrage increased when she traveled throughout the South after the Civil War and spoke to black women who had recently been emancipated but were still disenfranchised. At a time when the Fifteenth Amendment antagonized many white suffragists,Harper supported voting rights based on moral and educational qualifications, without regard to gender or race. In 1896, she helped found the National Association of Colored Women and became its vice-president the following year.25 “Aunt Chloe’s Politics,” featuring a no-nonsense sixty-year-old former slave as its speaker, reflects Harper’s sense of the stakes of voting rights: its final verses intimate a link between the “buying up” of men’s votes and the buying up of men. The dialogue“John and Jacob,”published more than a decade later,is equally direct,rebutting objections to woman suffrage as characteristic of the kinds of thinking that perpetuated slavery. 47 R “Aunt Chloe’s Politics” Of course, I don’t know very much About these politics, But I think that some who run ’em, Do mighty ugly tricks. I’ve seen ’em honey-fugle round, And talk so awful sweet, That you’d think them full of kindness, As an egg is full of meat. Now I don’t believe in looking Honest people in the face, And saying when you’re doing wrong, That “I haven’t sold my race.” When we want to school our children, If the money isn’t there, Whether black or white have took it, The loss we all must share. And this buying up each other Is something worse than mean, Though I thinks a heap of voting, I go for voting clean. Source: Frances Ellen Watkins Harper,“Aunt Chloe’s Politics,”from Sketches of Southern Life (1871), in A Brighter Coming Day: A Frances Ellen Watkins Harper Reader, ed. Frances Smith Foster (New York: Feminist Press, 1990), 204–205. “John and Jacob—A Dialogue on Woman’s Rights” Jacob I don’t believe a single bit In those new-fangled ways Of women running to the polls And voting now adays. I like the good old-fashioned times When women used to spin, And when you came home from work you knew Your wife was always in. Now there’s my Betsy, just as good As any wife need be, Who sits and tells me day by day That women are not free; And when I smile and say to her, “You surely make me laff; This talk about your rights and wrongs Is nothing else but chaff.” treacherous texts 48 John Now, Jacob, I don’t think like you; I think that Betsy Ann Has just as good a right to vote As you or any man. Jacob Now, John, do you believe for true In women running round, And when you come to look for them They are not to be found? Pray, who would stay at home to nurse, To cook, to wash, and sew, While women marched unto the polls? That’s what I want to know. John Who stays at home when Betsy Ann Goes out day after day To wash and iron, cook and sew, Because she gets her pay? I’m sure she wouldn’t take quite so long To vote and go her way, As when she leaves the little ones And works out day by day. Jacob Well, I declare, that is the truth! To vote, it don’t take long; But, then, I kind of think somehow That women’s voting’s wrong. John The masters thought before the war That slavery was right: But we who felt the heavy yoke Didn’t see it in that light. Some thought that it would never do For us in Southern lands, To change the fetters on our wrists For the ballot in our hands. Now if you don’t believe ’twas right To crowd us from the track, How can you push your wife aside And try to hold her back? declaring sentiments 49 Jacob But, John, I think...