FREE ESSAY ON A HISTORY OF WOMEN'S SUFFRAGE

A HISTORY OF WOMEN'S SUFFRAGE

Woman suffrage is the right of women to vote. Today, women in nearly all countries have
the same voting rights as men. But they did not begin to gain such rights until the early
1900's, and they had to overcome strong opposition to get them. The men and women who
supported the drive for woman suffrage were called suffragists. 
During colonial times, the right to vote was limited to adult males who owned property.
Many people thought property owners had the strongest interest in good government and so
were best qualified to make decisions. Most women could not vote, though some colonies
gave the vote to widows who owned property. 
By the mid-1700's, many colonial leaders were beginning to think that all citizens should
have a voice in government. They expressed this belief in such slogans as No Taxation
Without Representation and Government by the Consent of the Governed. 
After the United States became an independent nation, the Constitution gave the states
the right to decide who could vote. One by one, the states abolished property
requirements and, by 1830, all white male adults could vote. Only New Jersey gave women
the vote, but in 1807, that state also limited voting rights to men. 
Beginnings of the movement. Changing social conditions for women during the early 1800's,
combined with the idea of equality, led to the birth of the woman suffrage movement. For
example, women started to receive more education and to take part in reform movements,
which involved them in politics. As a result, women started to ask why they were not also
allowed to vote. 
One of the first public appeals for woman suffrage came in 1848. Two reformers, Lucretia
Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, called a women's rights convention in Seneca Falls,
N.Y., where Stanton lived. The men and women at the convention adopted a Declaration of
Sentiments that called for women to have equal rights in education, property, voting, and
other matters. The declaration, which used the Declaration of Independence as a model,
said, We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men and women are created equal.
... 
Suffrage quickly became the chief goal of the women's rights movement. Leaders of the
movement believed that if women had the vote, they could use it to gain other rights. But
the suffragists faced strong opposition. 
Most people who opposed woman suffrage believed that women were less intelligent and less
able to make political decisions than men. Opponents argued that men could represent
their wives better than the wives could represent themselves. Some people feared that
women's participation in politics would lead to the end of family life. 
Growth of the movement. The drive for woman suffrage gained strength after the passage of
the 15th Amendment to the Constitution, which gave the vote to black men but not to any
women. In 1869, suffragists formed two national organizations to work for the right to
vote. One was the National Woman Suffrage Association, and the other was the American
Woman Suffrage Association. 
The National Woman Suffrage Association, led by Stanton and another suffragist named
Susan B. Anthony, was the more radical of the two organizations. Its chief goal was an
amendment to the Constitution giving women the vote. In 1872, Anthony and a group of
women voted in the presidential election in Rochester, N.Y. She was arrested and fined
for voting illegally. At her trial, which attracted nationwide attention, she made a
stirring speech that ended with the slogan Resistance to Tyranny Is Obedience to God. 
The American Woman Suffrage Association, led by the suffragist Lucy Stone and her
husband, Henry Blackwell, was more conservative. Its main goal was to induce individual
states to give the vote to women. The two organizations united in 1890 to form the
National American Woman Suffrage Association. The Woman's Christian Temperance Union and
other organizations also made woman suffrage a goal. 
During the early 1900's, a new generation of leaders brought a fresh spirit to the woman
suffrage movement. Some of them, including Carrie Chapman Catt and Maud Wood Park, were
skilled organizers who received much of their support from middle-class women. These
leaders stressed organizing in every congressional district and lobbying in the nation's
capital. Other leaders, including Lucy Burns, Alice Paul, and Stanton's daughter Harriot
E. Blatch, appealed to young people, radicals, and working-class women. This group of
leaders devoted most of their efforts to marches, picketing, and other active forms of
protest. Paul and her followers even chained themselves to the White House fence. The
suffragists were often arrested and sent to jail, where many of them went on hunger
strikes. 
Action by individual states. In 1869, the Territory of Wyoming gave women the right to
vote. The Utah Territory did so a year later. Wyoming entered the Union in 1890 and
became the first state with woman suffrage. Colorado adopted woman suffrage in 1893, and
Idaho in 1896. By 1920, 15 states--most of them in the West--had granted full voting
privileges to women. Twelve other states allowed women to vote in presidential elections,
and two states let them vote in primary elections. 
The 19th Amendment. A woman suffrage amendment was first introduced in Congress in 1878.
It failed to pass but was reintroduced in every session of Congress for the next 40
years. 
During World War I (1914-1918), the contributions of women to the war effort increased
support for a suffrage amendment. In 1918, the House of Representatives held another vote
on the issue. Spectators packed the galleries, and several congressmen came to vote
despite illness. One congressman was brought in on a stretcher. Representative Frederick
C. Hicks of New York left his wife's deathbed--at her request--to vote for the amendment.
The House approved the amendment, but the Senate defeated it. In 1919, the Senate finally
passed the amendment and sent it to the states for approval. 
By late August 1920, the required number of states had ratified what became the 19th
Amendment. The amendment says, The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall
not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex. Women
now had the right to vote.