Читать книгу The History of Woman Suffrage - Various - Страница 65

William A. Whitehead, Corresponding Secretary of the New Jersey Historical Society, read the following paper at their annual meeting, January 21, 1858:

By the Proprietary laws, the right of suffrage in New Jersey was expressly to the free men of the province; and in equally explicit terms a law passed in 1709 prescribing the qualifications of electors, confined the privilege to male freeholders having one hundred acres of land in their own right, or worth fifty pounds, current money of the province, in real and personal estate, and during the whole of the colonial period these qualifications remained unaltered.

By the Constitution adopted July 2, 1776, the elective franchise was conferred upon all inhabitants of this colony, of full age, who are worth fifty pounds, proclamation money, clear estate in the same, and have resided within the county in which they claim a vote for twelve months immediately preceding the election; and the same, or similar language, was used in the different acts regulating elections until 1790; but I have not discovered any instance of the exercise of the right by females, under an interpretation which the full import of the words, "all inhabitants," was subsequently thought to sanction, during the whole of this period.

In 1790, however, a revision of the election law then in force was proposed, and upon the committee of the Legislature to whom the subject was referred was Mr. Joseph Cooper, of West Jersey, a prominent member of the Society of Friends. As the regulations of that society authorized females to vote in matters relating thereto, Mr. Cooper claimed for them the like privilege in matters connected with the State, and to support his views, quoted the provisions of the Constitution as sanctioning such a course. It was therefore to satisfy him that the committee consented to report a bill in which the expression, "he or she," applied to the voter, was introduced into the section specifying the necessary qualifications; thus giving a legislative endorsement of the alleged meaning of the Constitution. Still, no cases of females voting by virtue of this more definite provision are on record, and we are warranted in believing that the women of New Jersey then, as now, were not apt to overstep the bounds of decorum, or intrude where their characteristic modesty and self-respect might be wounded.

This law and its supplements were repealed in 1797, and it is some proof that the peculiar provision under review had not been availed of to any extent, if at all (as its evil consequences would otherwise have become apparent), that we find similar phraseology introduced into the new act. The right of suffrage was conferred upon "all free inhabitants of this State of full age," etc., thus adopting the language of the Constitution with the addition of the word "free," and "no person shall be entitled to vote in any other township or precinct than that in which he or she doth actually reside," etc., and in two other places is the possible difference in the sex of the voters recognized.

The first occasion on which females voted, of which any precise information has been obtained, was at an election held this year (1797) at Elizabethtown, Essex County, for members of the Legislature. The candidates between whom the greatest rivalry existed, were John Condit and William Crane, the heads of what were known a year or two later as the "Federal Republican" and "Federal Aristocratic" parties, the former the candidate of Newark and the northern portions of the county, and the latter the candidate of Elizabethtown and the adjoining country, for the Council. Under the impression that the candidates would poll nearly the same number of votes, the Elizabethtown leaders thought that by a bold coup d'état they might secure the success of Mr. Crane. At a late hour of the day, and, as I have been informed, just before the close of the poll, a number of females were brought up, and under the provisions of the existing laws, allowed to vote; but the manœuvre was unsuccessful, the majority for Mr. Condit, in the county, being ninety-three, notwithstanding. These proceedings were made the topic of two or three brief articles in the Newark Sentinel, in one of which the fact that "no less than seventy-five women were polled at the late election in a neighboring borough," was used as a pretended argument for the admission of females to office, and to service in the diplomatic corps; while another ironically asserts that "too much credit can not be given to the Federal leaders of Elizabethtown for the heroic virtue displayed in advancing in a body to the poll to support their favorite candidates."

So discreditable was this occurrence thought, that although another closely contested election took place the following year, we do not find any other than male votes deposited then, in Essex County, or elsewhere, until the Presidential election of 1800, between Mr. Adams and Mr. Jefferson, at which females voted very generally throughout the State; and such continued to be the practice until the passage of the act positively excluding them from the polls. At first the law had been so construed as to admit single women only, but as the practice extended, the construction of the privilege became broader and was made to include females eighteen years old, married or single; and even women of color. At a contested election in Hunterdon County, in 1802, the votes of two or three such, actually electing a member of the Legislature. It is remarkable that these proceedings did not sooner bring about a repeal of the laws which were thought to sanction them; but that event did not occur until 1807, and it is noticeable that, as the practice originated in Essex County, so the flagrant abuses which resulted from it reached their maximum in that county, and brought about its prohibition.

The circumstances attendant upon this event afford abundant matter for a most interesting chapter of local history, which I am happy to say has been written by a member of the Society (Mr. James Ross),78 and will be communicated before long, I trust, for insertion in our Proceedings. But the scope of this paper merely calls for a statement of facts. These are as follows:

In the year 1806 a new Court House and Jail were to be erected in the county of Essex. Strenuous exertions were made to have them located elsewhere than at Newark, which had been the county town from a very early period. Sufficient influence was brought to bear upon the Legislature to secure the passage of an act (approved November 5th of that year) authorizing a special election, at which "the inhabitants" of the county, "qualified to vote in elections for members of the State Legislature," etc., were described as the qualified electors to determine by their votes where the buildings should be located. The contest caused a great excitement throughout the county, and, under the existing laws, when the election was held in February, 1807, women of "full age," whether single or married, possessing the required property qualification, were permitted by the judges of election to vote. But as the conflict proceeded, and the blood of the combatants waxed warmer, the number of female voters increased, and it was soon found that every single and every married woman in the county was not only of "full age," but also "worth fifty pounds proclamation money, clear estate," and as such entitled to vote if they chose. And not only once, but as often as by change of dress or complicity of the inspectors, they might be able to repeat the process.

This was not confined to any one precinct, but was more or less the case in all, and so apparent were these and many other frauds that the Legislature at the ensuing session did not hesitate to sat it aside as having been illegally conducted; and, by repealing the act authorizing it, left the buildings to be erected in Newark, to which they legitimately belonged. And, in order that no future occurrence of the kind should take place, an act was passed (approved November 16, 1807), the preamble to which is as follows:

"Whereas, doubts have been raised and great diversities in practice obtained throughout the State in regard to the admission of aliens, females, and persons of color or negroes to vote in elections, as also in regard to the mode of ascertaining the qualifications of voters in respect to estate; and whereas, it is highly necessary to the safety, quiet good order and dignity of the State to clear up the said doubts by an act of the representatives of the people declaratory of the true sense and meaning of the Constitution, and to ensure its just execution in these particulars according to the intent of the framers thereof: Therefore," etc., etc.

This act confined the right of suffrage to free white male citizens twenty-one years of age, worth fifty pounds proclamation money, clear estate; and disposed of the property qualification by declaring that every person otherwise entitled to vote whose name should be enrolled on the last tax-lists for the State or County should be considered as worth the fifty pounds, thus by legislative enactment determining the meaning of the Constitution and settling the difficulty. The law remained unchanged until the adoption of the new Constitution a few years since, which instrument is equally restrictive as to persons who shall vote, and removes the property qualification altogether.

Very recently a refusal to respond to a demand for taxes legally imposed, was received from a distinguished advocate of "Woman's Rights" in one of the northern counties; who gave as her reasons "that women suffer taxation, and yet have no representation, which is not only unjust to one-half of the adult population, but is contrary to our Theory of Government"—and that when the attention of men is called to the wide difference between their theory of government and its practice in this particular, that they can not fail to see the mistake they now make, by imposing taxes on women when they refuse them the right of suffrage.79

Similar arguments were advanced by a sister of Richard Henry Lee, in 1778,80 when, if ever, they were calculated to receive due consideration, yet the distinguished Virginian did not hesitate to show the unreasonableness of the demand; in the course of his able answer remarking that (setting aside other motive for restricting the power to males) "perhaps 'twas thought rather out of character for women to press into those tumultuous assemblages of men where the business of choosing representatives is conducted!" And as it is very evident that when in times past the right was, not only claimed, but exercised in New Jersey, it never accorded with public sentiment; so it maybe safely predicted that, as was the case in 1807, "the safety, quiet, good order, and dignity of the State," will ever call for its explicit disavowal in times to come.

In his speech at the Woman's Rights Convention, 1853, in New York, Rev. John Pierpont said: "I can go back forty years; and forty years ago, when most of my present audience were not in, but behind, their cradles, passing a stranger, through the neighboring State of New Jersey, and stopping for dinner at an inn, where the coach stopped, I saw at the bar where I went to pay, a list of the voters of the town stuck up. My eye ran over it, and I read to my astonishment the names of several women. 'What!' I said, 'do women vote here?' 'Certainly,' was the answer, 'when they have real estate.' Then the question arose in my mind, why should not women vote: Laws are made regulating the tenure of real estate, and the essence of all republicanism is, that they who feel the pressure of the law should have a voice in its enactment."