"The question excited intense interest, as the value of every man's property was thought to be involved. Not only was every legal voter, man or woman, white or black, brought out; but, on both sides, gross frauds were practised. The property qualification was generally disregarded; aliens, and boys and girls not of full age, participated; and many of both sexes 'voted early, and voted often.' In Aquackanonk Township, thought to contain about three hundred legal voters, over eighteen hundred votes were polled, all but seven in the interest of Newark. "It does not appear that either _women or negroes_ were more especially implicated in these frauds than the white men. But the affair caused great scandal, and they seem to have been made the scapegoats. "When the Legislature assembled, they set aside the election as fraudulent; yet Newark retained the buildings. Then they passed an act (Nov. 15, 1807), restricting the suffrage to white male adult citizens twenty-one years of age, residents in the county for the twelve months preceding, and worth fifty pounds proclamation-money. But they went on, and provided that all such whose names appeared on the last duplicate of State or county taxes should be considered worth fifty pounds; thus virtually abolishing the property qualification. "In 1820, the same provisions were repeated, and maintained until 1844, when the present State Constitution was substituted. "Thus it appears, that, from 1776 to 1807,--a period of thirty-one years,--the right of women and negroes to vote was _admitted and exercised_; then from 1807 to 1844--by an arbitrary act of the Legislature, which does not seem to have been ever contested--the constitutional right was _suspended_, and both women and negroes excluded from the polls for thirty-seven years more. The extension of suffrage, in the State Constitution of 1776, to 'all inhabitants' possessing the prescribed qualifications, was doubtless due to the Quaker influence, then strong in West Jersey, and then, as now, in favor of the equal rights of women. "Since 1844, under the present Constitution, suffrage is conferred upon 'every white male citizen of the United States, of the age of twenty-one years, who shall have been a resident of this State one year, and of the county in which he claims a vote five months next before the election,' excepting paupers, idiots, insane persons, and criminals. "This Constitution is subject to amendment by a majority of both Houses of two successive Legislatures, when such amendment is afterward ratified by the people at a special election. "LUCY STONE, H.B. BLACKWELL."