Woman Suffrage

I

Introduction

Woman Suffrage, right of women to share on equal terms with men the political privileges afforded by representative government and, more particularly, to vote in elections and referendums and to hold public office. Equal political rights for women have been advocated since antiquity. Under the autocratic forms of government that prevailed in ancient times and under the feudal regimes of the Middle Ages, however, suffrage was so restricted, even among men, that enfranchisement of women never attained the status of a major political issue. Conditions warranted organized woman-suffrage movements only after suffrage had been won by large, formerly disfranchised groups of the male population as a consequence of the democratic revolutions of the 18th and 19th centuries.

II

In Colonial America

The women’s suffrage movement originated in the United States during the 19th century. In colonial America, as elsewhere in the world, civil law did not recognize the equality of men and women. The perception of inequality, which included the belief that women lacked the capacity to reason as soundly as men, provided the basis for denying women the right to vote. Even before the American Revolution (1776-1783), however, American women participated in public life somewhat more freely than European women. In most colonies land ownership, not gender, determined the right to vote. Although females possessed only limited property rights, women from families that owned property could sometimes vote, particularly if the male head of household was for some reason incapacitated. In Massachusetts women property holders had voting privileges from 1691 to 1780. In this period, groups such as the American Quakers, and some individuals, notably the Anglo-American political philosopher Thomas Paine, also argued that women should possess the right to vote.

After the American Revolution, the framers of the Constitution of the United States reserved decisions about qualifications for voting to the individual states. By the early 19th century, most states had dropped the property qualification and extended voting rights to all adult males. Ironically, the extension of democracy to a broader base of men represented a double setback for women. By definition, laws giving only men the right to vote now excluded women solely on the basis of their gender. In addition, by eliminating property ownership as a requirement for voting, these laws deprived women of the only legal claim for a right to vote that they previously had.

III

Abolitionism and Temperance

During the first half of the 19th century American suffragists worked mainly through the abolitionist and the temperance movements, but antifeminist prejudices severely limited the role of woman members. A notable instance of such prejudice occurred at the London Anti-Slavery Convention of 1840. For several days the convention debated bitterly the right of eight American women to take part in the proceedings. Internationally famous clergymen contended during the debate that equal status for women was contrary to the will of God. Eventually two of the women, the noted American feminists Lucretia Coffin Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, were seated behind a curtain, effectively shielded from view and denied the right to speak.

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After many such rebuffs American suffragists decided to create a separate movement dedicated to women’s rights. Prominent early in the movement were, besides Mott and Stanton, the brilliant American feminists Susan B. Anthony, Lucy Stone, Abby Kelley Foster, and Ernestine Rose. American men active in support of woman suffrage included antislavery leader Frederick Douglass, clergymen Henry Ward Beecher and Wendell Phillips, and essayist and poet Ralph Waldo Emerson.

IV

The Seneca Falls Convention

In July 1848, on the initiative of Mott and Stanton, the first women’s rights convention met at a Wesleyan church chapel in Seneca Falls, New York. Between 100 and 300 people attended the convention, among them many male sympathizers. After serious discussion of proposed means to achieve their ends, the delegates finally agreed that the primary goal should be attainment of the franchise. The convention then adopted a Declaration of Sentiments patterned after the American Declaration of Independence.

Public reaction to the Seneca Falls convention presaged a stormy future for the new movement. Although many prominent Americans, including the famed editor Horace Greeley and the abolitionist leader William Lloyd Garrison, warmly supported it, many citizens and the great majority of newspapers responded with ridicule, fury, and vilification. Suffragists were called the shrieking sisterhood, branded as unfeminine, and accused of immorality and drunkenness. Later, when suffragist leaders undertook speaking tours in support of women’s rights, temperance, and abolition, they were often subjected to physical violence. Meetings repeatedly were stormed and disrupted by gangs of street bullies. On one occasion when Anthony spoke in Albany, New York, the city mayor sat on the rostrum brandishing a revolver to discourage possible attacks by hoodlums in the audience. Despite intimidation, the woman-suffrage and abolitionist movements continued for some years to grow side by side.

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