The Inevitable: An Analysis of Carrie Chapman Catt’s Address to the United States Congress (1917)

In November 1917, Carrie Chapman Catt, leader of National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA), gave an address to the United States Congress expressing her belief that woman’s suffrage was inevitable, and requesting that Congress see it as such and vote to pass the amendment. Catt’s speech was based on facts and figures (ethos) from our own country’s history, logic, reasoning, and common sense (logos); it was hard for any man to argue with, which was her goal. Catt had given hundreds of speeches in her life, and in this case, she planned her approach to be factual and unemotional to get through to those that thought of women as
For the first time in our history Congress has imposed a direct tax upon women and has thus deliberately violated the most fundamental and sacred principle of our government, since it offers no compensating “representation” for the tax it imposes, (3) If the entire forty-eight States should severally enfranchise women, their political status would still be inferior to that of men, since no provision for national protection in their right to vote would exist.” (Catt, 1917)
After she gives the reasons for wanting federal legislation, she gives all of her reasoning for why state legislation is NOT the way to get women the vote. Catt is so prepared for what the men in Congress have to say, that she even adds to her speech that she already knows what their objections are and lists them and then explains why they are faulty. She insists that suffrage is inevitable, and everyone knows it, so why fight it?
In this speech, Carrie Chapman Catt tries to get her point across using mainly facts and reasoning. She uses a lot of what is going on in the world around them at the time, as references and examples of democracy. She points out our country’s history repeatedly, and how at that time more than ever, the whole world looks to the United States as the example of true democracy. Although the speech is filled with facts and reasoning of believing one thing so you should believe the other, at the same time it is peppered with