Woman and the Republic: A Survey of the Woman-Suffrage Movement in the United States and a Discussion of the Claims and Arguments of Its Foremost AdvocatesJohnson, Helen Kendrick
History
Woman and the Republic: A Survey of the Woman-Suffrage Movement in the United States and a Discussion of the Claims and Arguments of Its Foremost Advocates
Johnson, Helen Kendrick
Women -- Legal status, laws, etc. -- United States; Women -- Suffrage -- United States
Since January, 1897, Nova Scotia, two Territories, and ten States have
dealt with the suffrage proposal, and all but one of these have rendered
adverse decisions. In Nova Scotia an old bill was reconsidered, and a
larger majority was obtained against it. The territories are Arizona and
Oklahoma. The states in which it was defeated are Iowa, Nevada, Nebraska,
Kansas, Delaware, Maine, Massachusetts, and California. The last two had
given it heavy defeats but a few months previously. Indiana's Supreme
Court handed down an adverse decision. The favorable state was Washington,
where the Legislature voted to submit an amendment to the people next
year.
Certainly, the question cannot be said not to have received the attention
that any vital subject might have claimed, and the answers show that, as
comprehension of the meaning of democracy has grown, and as liberty of
thought and action for men and women has increased, the proposition to
cast an unequal burden, not upon a disfranchised class, but upon an
unfranchised sex which in every class has its own correlative and equal
duties, rights, and privileges, is losing ground.
But, it is answered, look at the suffrage triumphs in Utah State and
Idaho. Let us look at them more closely. It is my opinion that a few more
such triumphs would end in its utter overthrow. Utah introduced suffrage
by a simple legislative act. Woman suffrage was abolished in Utah
Territory by Federal statute, because it was found to be sustaining the
Mormon Church and the institution of polygamy. The Suffragists profess to
hold in abhorrence churchly and polygamous rule. Here was an opportunity
for them to say to the Government: "This is not what we meant by suffrage,
nor what we desire suffrage to be used for. We approve this real
disfranchisement." Did they do anything of the kind? Far from it. In 1876
they passed the following: "Resolved, That, the right of suffrage being
vested in the women of Utah by their constitutional and lawful
enfranchisement, and by six years of use, we denounce the proposition
about to be again presented to Congress for the disfranchisement of the
women of that Territory, as an outrage on the freedom of thousands of
legal voters and a gross innovation of vested rights; we demand the
abolition of the system of numbering the ballots, in order that the women
may be thoroughly free to vote as they choose, without supervision or
dictation; and that the chair appoint a committee of three persons, with
power to add to their number, to memorialize Congress, and otherwise watch
over the rights of women of Utah in this regard during the next
twelvemonth."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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