Women's suffrage amendment

“ The makers of the Federal Constitution foresaw the necessity of referring important and intricate questions to a more intelligent body than the masses of the people and so provided for the amendment of the Constitution by referendum to the legislatures of the several states. Why should women be denied the privilege thus established? The United States is one land and one people. All the states have the same institutions, customs and ideals.
Woman suffrage has been caught in a snarl of state constitutional obstructions, inefficient election laws and the misapplied theory of States Rights. ”

“ As by repeated judicial decisions, woman's right to vote under the fourteenth amendment has been denied, we must now unitedly demand a sixteenth amendment to the United States Constitution, that shall secure this right to the women of the nation. In certain States and territories where women had already voted, they have been denied the right by legislative action. ”

“ It is unthinkable that a national government which represents women, and which appeals periodically to the Suffrages of women, should ignore the issue of their right to political freedom.
We cannot wait until after the passage of the scheduled administration reforms. These reforms, which affect women, should not be enacted without the consent of women. Congress is free to take action on our question in the present Session. We ask 43the administration to support the Woman Suffrage Amendment in Congress with its full strength. ”

“ We recognize that Woman Suffrage is no longer a theory to be debated but a condition to be met. The inevitable "votes for women" is a world movement and unless the South squarely faces the issue and takes steps to preserve the State's right the force of public opinion will make it mandatory through a National Constitutional Amendment.... ”

“ It is a favorite trick with politicians to bring up the Amendment in the short session of a dying Congress. They can vote no and still have a chance, in the new Congress, to redeem themselves before election.
The Suffragist of January 23 quotes some of the reasons for opposing the Amendment:
That Woman Suffrage cannot be supported because of a man’s respect, admiration, and reverence for womanhood.
That five little colored girls marched in a Suffrage parade in Columbus, Ohio.
That women must be protected against themselves. They think they want to vote. ”

“ Nearly every opponent in the House voted against the bill after that amendment had been incorporated, showing clearly that they were not willing to let women have suffrage even if a majority of the men and women of the State should vote for it. It was then believed that such action would be constitutional. The Supreme Court afterwards gave its opinion that Municipal Suffrage could not be extended by a popular vote of: either the men or the women, or both, but must be extended, if at all, by the Legislature. Following that decision, the opponents have become clamorous for a popular vote. ”

“ To secure an amendment requires the concurrent action of two-thirds of both branches of Congress and the affirmative action of three-fourths of the States. The question as to whether this resolution shall be submitted to the Legislatures for ratification does not involve the right or policy of the proposed amendment. ....
No question in this country has been more ably discussed than this has been by the women themselves. I do not think a single objection which is made to woman suffrage is tenable. No one will contend but that women have sufficient capacity to vote intelligently. ”

“ Especially is it strange that in States where iron-bound constitutional restrictions forbid any exercise whatever of local or municipal woman suffrage and where the social conditions make an amendment of State constitution almost impossible, suffragists allow year after year to elapse without any effort to get the only practical thing possible, action by the State Legislature conferring Presidential suffrage on women. Suffrage in school or municipal elections cannot give us a full and fair test of the value of equal suffrage or of woman's willingness to participate. ”

“ The convention expressed itself in no uncertain tones in the following resolution telegraphed to President Wilson: "For nearly seventy years the women of the United States have tried the State rights' route with its long and tortuous path. Since the Texas Legislature has repeatedly refused submission of the suffrage amendment to the voters, thereby repudiating the State rights' principle of the Democratic party, the State Equal Suffrage Association hereby urges your support of the Federal Suffrage Amendment to enfranchise the women of our country." ”

“ We have made these pilgrimages to Washington for many, many years and committees have received us with graciousness and have listened to our arguments, but the difficulty is that they have not permitted our claims to come before Congress, so that body itself might act upon them. Our wish is that we may have a national constitutional amendment, enfranchising the women citizens and preventing the States from depriving them of representation in the Government. ”

“ Woman suffrage associations in the several States are advised to push the question to a vote in their respective Legislatures. The time for agitation alone has passed, and the time for aggressive action has come. It will be found by a close examination of many State constitutions that by the liberal provisions of their Bill of Rights—often embodied in Article I—the women of the State can be enfranchised without waiting for the tedious and hopeless proviso of a constitutional amendment.... ”

“ There would be taken the first direct vote in that body on a Sixteenth Amendment to enfranchise women. The attention of the advocates of woman suffrage was directed to Congress for the first time when the Fourteenth Amendment was under discussion in 1865. That article in the beginning was broad enough to include women but political expediency inserted the word "male," so that if any State should disfranchise any of its male citizens they should be counted out of the basis of representation. ”

“ I wish to say that this committee, during my service on it, has always been met with this proposition when this amend- ment was proposed, that the States already have the authority to confer suffrage upon women, and, therefore, why is it necessary for women to wait for an amendment to the Federal Constitution when they can now go to the States and obtain this right to vote, just as the women of California did last year? Mrs. Harper: Mr. Chairman, the women are not waiting; they are keeping right on with their efforts to get the suffrage from the States. ”

“ There are seven reasons for Federal enfranchisement of women. Other countries have so enfranchised women. Conditions of men's enfranchisement in U.S. were easy. Many State constitutions today practically impossible to amend. Election laws do not protect State amendment elections from fraud. Men's right to vote protected by Federal Constitution; state by state enfranchisement would not give this protection to women. Woman Suffrage a national question. Decision on technical and abstract question of Suffrage demands different class of intelligence from election of candidates. ”

“ The second method is for Congress to submit to the several legislatures a proposition for a XVI. Amendment that shall prohibit the States from depriving women citizens of their right to vote. The third plan is to take our rights under the XIV. Amendment of the Constitution which declares "that all persons are citizens," and "no State shall deny or abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens." Again, there are two ways of securing the right of suffrage under the Constitution as it is ”

“ The executive committee sent a memorial to the Republican convention, held in June for the nomination of State officers, asking a plank in their platform favoring the submission of the woman suffrage amendment. The request was not granted. Leading politicians who professed to believe in equality of rights for women feared that to do so would make too heavy a weight for the party to carry, it having already incorporated a prohibition plank in its platform. The committee also interviewed 500 editors, asking them to open the columns of their papers to the advocacy of woman suffrage. ”

“ Most of them had already granted woman suffrage or were ready to grant it. There was no overmastering need for coercing the states that were not yet ready. An impartial student of the period will be apt to conclude that the Nineteenth Amendment was the product of impatience rather than necessity.
Someone may ask, "What effect will the granting of votes to women have on the problem of preserving the constitutional equilibrium?" The ultimate power lies with the voters, and the women with votes now equal or outnumber the men. ”

“ Objection that women do not want the vote. Men of 21 and naturalized citizens become voters without being asked. Only those who wish to need use the vote. That many women do want the vote is shown by western figures in election of November, 1916. Objection that unfavorable referenda in various states show that constituency has instructed its representatives in Congress against woman suffrage. Unfavorable majority against a suffrage amendment is in reality a minority of constituency. ”

“ The action of the Democratic leaders at Washington in again blocking the Suffrage Amendment by postponing indefinitely its consideration in the Judiciary Committee is an additional spur to Suffragists to press forward with their plan of going out through the Suffrage States to tell the women voters—particularly those who are supporting the Democratic Party—of the opposition which the Party is giving to the Federal Amendment at Washington. ”

“ New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania for suffrage amendments to their State constitutions attracted the attention of the whole country. All failed of success at the November election but the effects were not wholly disastrous. The announcement by President Wilson and the majority of his Cabinet that they were in favor of woman suffrage brought many doubters into the fold. The two-thirds vote of Massachusetts in opposition set that State aside as one in which women could only hope to gain the suffrage through a Federal Amendment. ”

“ We are informed that you consider it inadvisable to incorporate a suffrage amendment in the revised constitution lest it endanger the acceptance of other proposed and necessary changes. This view may be correct, but surely it need not prevent you from advising provision by which the Legislature would be empowered to extend suffrage to women at its discretion, and this we greatly desire. ”

“ Where they do not want it, the suffrage should not be forced upon them." When the new administration assumed office in March, 1913, the friends of suffrage worked to secure a constitutional amendment which should make votes for women universal in the United States. ”

“ This right had been taken away when the constitution was amended and the word "male" inserted. What is now desired is simply restoration of that which had been taken away. She believed that this restoration was made, unwittingly, by the addition of the fourteenth amendment, which, without doubt, makes women citizens. It is men who have abused the republican institution of suffrage; it is women who desire to restore it to its proper exercise. Miss Anthony read a letter from Mrs. Wallace, the wife of one of the former governors of Indiana ”