Woman Suffrage By Federal Constitutional Amendment
History
Woman Suffrage By Federal Constitutional Amendment
Women -- Suffrage -- United States
Suffrage for men and suffrage for women in other lands, with few and
minor exceptions, has been granted by parliamentary act and not by
referenda. By such enactment the women of Australia were granted full
suffrage in Federal elections by the Federal Parliament (1902), and
each State or Province granted full suffrage in all other elections by
act of their Provincial Parliaments.[A] By such enactment the Isle
of Man, New Zealand, Finland, Norway, Iceland and Denmark gave equal
suffrage in all elections to women.[A] By such process the Parliaments
of Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta gave full provincial suffrage
to their women in 1916. British Columbia referred the question to the
voters in 1916, but the Provincial Parliament had already extended
all suffrage rights except the parliamentary vote, and both political
parties lent their aid in the referendum which consequently gave a
majority in every precinct on the home vote and a majority of the
soldier vote was returned from Europe later. By parliamentary act all
other Canadian Provinces, the Provinces of South Africa, the
countries of Sweden[A] and Great Britain have extended far more voting
privileges than any woman citizen of the United States east of the
Missouri River (except those of Illinois) has received. To the women
of Belise (British Honduras), the cities of Rangoon (Burmah), Bombay
(India), the Province of Baroda (India), the Province of Voralberg
(Austria), and Laibach (Austria) the same statement applies. In
Bohemia, Russia and various Provinces of Austria and Germany,
the principle of representation is recognized by the grant to
property-holding women of a vote by proxy. The suffragists of France
reported just before the war broke out that the French Parliament was
pledged to extend universal municipal suffrage to women. Men and women
of high repute say the full suffrage is certain to be extended by
the British Parliament to the women of England, Scotland, Ireland and
Wales soon after the close of the war and already these women have all
suffrage rights except the vote for Parliamentary members. These facts
are strange since it was the United States which first established
general suffrage for men upon the two principles that "taxation
without representation is tyranny" and that governments to be just
should "derive their consent from the governed." The unanswerable
logic of these two principles is responsible for the extension of
suffrage to men and women the world over. In the United States,
however, women are still taxed without "representation" and still
live under a government to which they have given no "consent." IT IS
OBVIOUSLY UNFAIR TO SUBJECT WOMEN OF THIS COUNTRY--WHICH BOASTS THAT
IT IS THE LEADER IN THE MOVEMENT TOWARD UNIVERSAL SUFFRAGE--TO A
LONGER, HARDER, MORE DIFFICULT PROCESS THAN HAS BEEN IMPOSED BY OTHER
NATIONS UPON MEN OR WOMEN. American constitutions of the nation and
the states have closed the door to the simple processes by which men
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