Woman Suffrage By Federal Constitutional Amendment Part 1

Woman Suffrage By Federal Const.i.tutional Amendment.

by Various.

INTRODUCTION

No effort is made in the following pages to present an argument for woman suffrage. No careful observer of the modern trend of human affairs, doubts that "governments of the people" are destined to replace the monarchies of the world. No listener will fail to hear the rumble of the rising tide of democracy. No watcher of events will deny that the women of all civilized lands will be enfranchised eventually as part of the people ent.i.tled to give consent and no American possessed of political foresight doubts woman suffrage in our land as a coming fact.

The discussion herein is strictly confined to the reasons why an amendment to the Federal Const.i.tution is the most appropriate method of dealing with the question. This proposed amendment was introduced into Congress in 1878 at the request of the National Woman Suffrage a.s.sociation. Since 1882 the Senate Committee has reported it with a favorable majority every year except in 1890 and 1896. Twice only has it gone to vote in the Senate. The first time was on January 25, 1887; the second, March 19, 1914. In the House it has been reported from Committee seven times, twice by a favorable majority, three times by an adverse majority and twice without recommendation. The House has allowed the measure to come to vote but once, in 1915. Yet while women of the nation in large and increasing numbers have stood at doors of Congress waiting and hoping, praying and appealing for the democratic right to have their opinions counted in affairs of their government, millions of men have entered through our gates and automatically have pa.s.sed into voting citizens.h.i.+p without cost of money, time or service, aye, without knowing what it meant or asking for the privilege. Among the enfranchised there are vast groups of totally illiterate, and others of gross ignorance, groups of men of all nations of Europe, uneducated Indians and Negroes. Among the unenfranchised are the owners of millions of dollars worth of property, college presidents and college graduates, thousands of teachers in universities, colleges and public schools, physicians, lawyers, dentists, journalists, heads of businesses, representatives of every trade and occupation and thousands of the nation's homekeepers. The former group secured its vote without the asking; the latter appeals in vain to Congress for the removal of the stigma this inexplicable contrast puts upon their s.e.x. It is hoped this little book may gain attention where other means have failed.

C.C.C.

January, 1917.

CHAPTER I

WHY THE FEDERAL AMENDMENT?

Woman Suffrage is coming--no intelligent person in the United States or in the world will deny that fact. The most an intelligent opponent expects to accomplish is to postpone its establishment as long as possible. When it will come and how it will come are still open questions. Woman Suffrage by Federal Amendment is supported by seven main reasons. These main reasons are evaded or avoided; they are not answered.

1. KEEPING PACE WITH OTHER COUNTRIES DEMANDS IT.

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 munic.i.p.al 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 const.i.tutions of the nation and the states have closed the door to the simple processes by which men and women of other countries have been enfranchised. An amendment to our Federal Const.i.tution is the nearest approach to them. To deny the benefits of this method to the women of this country is to put upon them a PENALTY FOR BEING AMERICANS.

[Footnote A: See Appendix A for dates and conditions.]

2. EQUAL RIGHTS DEMANDS IT.

Men of this country have been enfranchised by various extensions of the voting privilege but IN NO SINGLE INSTANCE were they compelled to appeal to an electorate containing groups of recently naturalized and even unnaturalized foreigners, Indians, Negroes, large numbers of illiterates, ne'er-do-wells, and drunken loafers. The Jews, denied the vote in all our colonies, and the Catholics, denied the vote in most of them, received their franchise through the revolutionary const.i.tutions which removed all religious qualifications for the vote in a manner consistent with the self-respect of all. The property qualifications for the vote which were established in every colony and continued in the early state const.i.tutions were usually removed by a referendum but the question obviously went to an electorate limited to property-holders only. The largest number of voters to which such an amendment was referred was that of New York. Had every man voted who was qualified to do so, the electorate would not have exceeded 200,000 and probably not more than 150,000.[A]

[Footnote A: Suffrage in the Colonies. New York Chapter. McKinley.]

The next extensions of the vote to men were made to certain tribes of Indians by act of Congress; and to the Negro by amendment to the Federal Const.i.tution.

At least three-fourths of the present electors secured their votes through direct naturalization or that of their forefathers. Congress determines conditions of citizens.h.i.+p and state const.i.tutions fix qualifications of voters. In no instance has the foreign immigrant been forced to plead with a vast electorate for his vote. The suffrage has been "thrust upon him" without effort or even request on his part. National and State const.i.tutions not only close to women the comparatively easy processes by which the vote was extended to men and women of other countries but also those processes by which the vote was secured to men of our own land. The simplest method now possible is by amendment of the Federal Const.i.tution. To deny the privilege of that method to women is a discrimination against them so unjust and insufferable that no fair-minded man North or South, East or West, can logically share in the denial.

3. RELIEF FROM UNJUST CONSt.i.tUTIONAL OBSTRUCTIONS DEMANDS IT.

The const.i.tutions of many states have provided for amendments by such difficult processes that they either have never been amended or have not been amended when the subject is in the least controversial. Their provisions not infrequently are utilized by opponents of a cause to delay action for years. A present case ill.u.s.trates. Newspapers in Kentucky which have opposed woman suffrage, and still do so, have started a campaign (December, 1916) to submit a woman suffrage amendment to voters with the announced intention of securing its defeat at the polls in order to remove it from politics for five years as the same question cannot be again submitted for that length of time.

There are state const.i.tutions so impossible of amendment that women of those states can only secure enfranchis.e.m.e.nt through Federal action and fair play demands the submission of a Federal const.i.tutional amendment. (See Chapter II.)

4. PROTECTION FROM INADEQUATE ELECTION LAWS DEMANDS IT.

The election laws of all states make inadequate provision for safeguarding the vote on const.i.tutional amendments. Since election laws do not protect suffrage referenda, suffragists justly demand the method prescribed by our national const.i.tution to appeal their case from male voters at large to the higher court of Congress and the Legislatures. (See Chapters III and IV.)

5. EQUAL STATUS OF MEN AND WOMEN VOTERS DEMANDS IT.

Until the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment the National Const.i.tution did not discriminate against women but in Section 2 of that amendment provision was made whereby a penalty may be directed against any state which denies the right to vote to its _male inhabitants_ possessed of the necessary qualifications as prescribed by nation and state. If the entire 48 states should severally enfranchise women their political status would still be inferior to that of men, since no provision for national protection in their right to vote would exist.

The women of eleven states are said to vote on equal terms with men.

As a matter of fact they do not, since they not only lose their vote whenever they change their residence to any one of the 37 other states (except Illinois, where they lose only a portion of their privileges), but they enjoy no national protection in their right to vote. Women justly demand "Equal Rights for All and Special Privileges for None."

Amendment to the National Const.i.tution alone can give them an equal status. Equality of rights can never be secured through state by state enfranchis.e.m.e.nt.

6. NATIONAL SIGNIFICANCE OF QUESTION DEMANDS IT.

Woman suffrage in every other country is a National question. With eleven American states and nearly half the territory of the civilized world already won; with the statement of the press still unchallenged that women voters were "the balance of power" which decided the last presidential election, the movement has reached a position of national significance in the United States. Any policy which seeks to s.h.i.+ft responsibility or to procrastinate action, is, to use the mildest phraseology, unworthy of the Congress in whose charge the making of American political history reposes.

7. TREATMENT OF QUESTION DEMANDS INTELLIGENCE.

The handicaps of a popular vote upon a question of human liberty which must be described in technical language will be clear to all who think. It is probable that at least a fourth of the voters in West Virginia, one of the recent suffrage campaign states, could not define the following words intelligently: const.i.tution, amendment, franchise, suffrage, majority, plurality. It is probable they would succeed even less well at an attempt to give an account of the Declaration of Independence, the Revolution, Taxation without Representation, the will of the majority, popular government. Such men might make a fairly intelligent choice of men for local offices because their minds are trained to deal with persons and concrete things. They could decide between Mr. Wilson and Mr. Hughes with some discrimination, but would have slight if any knowledge of the platforms upon which either stood.

A referendum in many of our states, means to defer woman suffrage until the most ignorant, most narrow-minded, most un-American, are ready for it. The removal of the question to the higher court of the Congress and the Legislatures of the several states means that it will be established when the intelligent, Americanized, progressive people of the country are ready for it.

CHAPTER II.

STATE CONSt.i.tUTIONAL OBSTRUCTIONS[A]

[Footnote A: Table of difficulties in each state is to be found in the Appendix.]

MARY SUMNER BOYD

At its last session the Arkansas Legislature pa.s.sed a Woman Suffrage bill by a generous majority; in Kentucky a bill pa.s.sed both houses and one house in five other states. One of these was Arkansas where a const.i.tutional provision that only three amendments can be submitted to the people at once rendered of no avail the pa.s.sage of the Legislature. In the five other states the enormous Const.i.tutional majorities required in a legislative vote on amendments defeated the measure.

This is the story of a typical year and these are two of the difficulties which beset the gaining of suffrage "state by state."

Year after year labor is thrown away and money wasted because actual minorities in legislatures can defeat const.i.tutional amendments; or because once past the legislature, const.i.tutional technicalities can keep them away from the polls; or because, safely past these hazards, a minority vote of the people can defeat a bill that has successfully reached the polls.

Theoretically an amendment to a state const.i.tution must have the approval of the Legislature, ratified by the approval of the people.

This ratification is what differentiates it from a statutory law. This is the actual requirement, however, in but two of the male suffrage states, South Dakota and Missouri. In all the rest, except Delaware and New Hamps.h.i.+re, which have special methods of amending, much more than simple pa.s.sage and ratification is required.

There are some half-dozen cla.s.ses of technical requirements which make the amending of many state const.i.tutions wellnigh impossible. Some states have never been able to amend; others have had to submit the same amendment again and again before it pa.s.sed, even in the case of measures which were not unpopular. The Legislatures of Nebraska and Alabama have occasionally succeeded in pa.s.sing amendments favored by politicians, by resorting to clever tricks to circ.u.mvent the const.i.tutional handicaps. Only by outwitting the framers have they been able to make changes in their const.i.tutions.

Among the common technical requirements are the pa.s.sing by a set proportion much larger than a mere majority of the legislature; the pa.s.sing of the people's vote by a majority of those voting for candidates and not merely of those voting on the amendment itself; the setting of special time and other limits for the submission of amendments, etc. Many states combine three or more of these requirements.