WOMAN SUFFRAGE. 



785 



extensive domains, such as the Virginia, the 

 Hudson's Bay, and the East India Companies. In 

 parishes and cities, freeholders and burgesses, 

 being women, voted equally with men ; rate- 

 payers of either sex had the right to vote for 

 local officers and on local questions, and up to 

 1640 the records show that they occasionally 

 voted for members of Parliament. In 1701 it 

 was provided that husbands should cast the vote 

 of their wives, but spinsters and widows remained 

 undisturbed in the possession of such franchise 

 as they possessed. That women exercised these 

 functions only occasionally is shown by the test 

 cases which came up at long intervals ; that they 

 had the right to do so is shown by the decisions 

 of the courts. The exercise of the franchise 

 seems to have become less and less common, and 

 finally to have lapsed through disuse, so that in 

 1832 we find Mary Smith, a lady of fortune in 

 the county of York, petitioning the House of 

 Commons that every unmarried woman possess- 

 ing the necessary pecuniary qualifications should 

 be entitled to vote for members of Parliament. 



In America in early colonial times women were 

 among the charter proprietors of New Jersey, 

 Virginia, and South Carolina. Women voted 

 extensively in New Jersey up to 1807, when a 

 law was passed forbidding any but white male 

 citizens to vote. 



The way for the woman-suffrage movement was 

 prepared by the antislavery agitation early in 

 the present century, particularly in the United 

 States, in the prosecution of which women be- 

 came trained to public speaking and to executive 

 action. Popular sentiment was opposed to this 

 public appearance of women, and continued so 

 to be until after long familiarity with it. In 

 1840, when the World's Antislavery Convention 

 was held in London, 7 women's antislavery 

 societies in America sent woman delegates. 

 They were excluded from the convention, and 

 2 of them Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady 

 Stan ton, whose names have ever since been iden- 

 tified with woman suffrage then resolved to 

 hold a woman's rights convention on their re- 

 turn to the United States; but no such conven- 

 tion was held until after eight years. Mean- 

 while, the passage of the Married Women's Prop- 

 erty act of New York State, which had been in 

 agitation since 1836, and of similar bills in Rhode 

 Island, Vermont, and Pennsylvania, and the dis- 

 cussion aroused by these bills, brought home to 

 the minds of thoughtful women a realization of 

 the disabilities under which many women suf- 

 fered as to the possession of their earnings, 

 their right of inheritance, and their right in 

 their children. For several years after the move- 

 ment began, the custody of* children, equal pay 

 for equal work, and the right of married women 

 to their earnings, were the great contention. The 

 suffrage was to many women an after issue, be- 

 lieved to be necessary for the gaining of these 

 ends. 



Shortly after the passage of the Married 

 Women's Property act of New York a call was 

 issued by Lucretia Mott. Elizabeth Cady Stanton, 

 and others, to a woman's rights convention at 

 Seneca Falls, July 19 and 20, 1848. At this 

 meeting a declaration of sentiments was pre- 

 sented, modeled upon the Declaration of Inde- 

 pendence, but substituting 18 grievances of 

 VOL. xxxiv. 50 A 



womenpolitical, legal, social, and moral for 

 the 18 grievances set forth in that document. A 

 series of resolutions was offered asserting the in- 

 validity of such laws as prevented woman V oc- 

 cupying such a station in society as her con- 

 science dictates and her abilities permit, and. in 

 general, declaring the equality of men and 

 women ; the ninth resolution, urging women to 

 secure for themselves the elective franchise, was 

 the only one not unanimously adopted. Tin- 

 convention adjourned to meet in Rochester two 

 weeks later. Much interest, a large proportion 

 of which was hostile, was aroused by these meet- 

 ings, but in spite of the hostility of the public 

 and the ridicule of the press, the movement 

 spread continuously, if not rapidly. 



During this year (1848) the revolution year of 

 Europe agitation for a better social and polit- 

 ical status for women was begun in several coun- 

 tries, especially in France, Germany, and Den- 

 mark. Canada also felt the impulse, and in the 

 following year passed a bill to naturalize women 

 who married native-born or naturalized subjects. 

 In the United States legislative action on the 

 subject of suffrage was begun in 1849, when a 

 petition for suffrage was presented to the Michi- 

 gan Legislature and reported favorably. 



In 1850 the first National Woman's Rights 

 Convention assembled in Worcester, Mass., pur- 

 suant to a call of a committee formed at an anti- 

 slavery meeting held in Boston earlier in the 

 year. One of the signers of this call was Ralph 

 Waldo Emerson. Various States were represented 

 in the convention, but of 268 registered members 

 186 were from Massachusetts. The old anti- 

 slavery leaders, Wendell Phillips, William Lloyd 

 Garrison, Stephen S. Foster, and W. H. Cha'n- 

 ning, with women who had become noted in that 

 agitation, Abby Kelly Foster, Angelina Grimke, 

 and others, were conspicuous among the speakers. 

 A resolution was passed that " failure to demand 

 suffrage is an omission of duty," and demand- 

 ing "equality before the law, without distinction 

 of sex or color." Through the years that fol- 

 lowed, the woman's rights movement was faithful 

 to the antislavery principles of its founders. 



The Worcester convention attracted much at- 

 tention in England. Its proceedings were dis- 

 cussed by the " Westminster Review," in an able 

 article long supposed to be from the pen of John 

 Stuart Mill, but which was in fact by Mrs. Tay- 

 lor, who subsequently became his wife. In 

 America the convention aroused rather satire 

 and ridicule than serious consideration. Women 

 were greatly aroused, however, and in the next 

 few years societies were formed and action of 

 one kind or another inaugurated in several 

 Northern States, notably in Ohio. The effort to 

 obtain such rights as were deemed essential was 

 pursued during this period, principally through 

 legislative action, on the ground that nothing in 

 the letter of the State or Federal Constitution 

 forbade the rights of women. This contention 

 was strongly supported by the passage in Eng- 

 land, in 1850. of Lord Brougham's act (often 

 called Lord Romilly's) providing that in all 

 acts words implying 'the masculine gender shall 

 be taken and deemed to include females, unless 

 the contrary be expressly provided. 



The province of Ontario this year passed a 

 school suffrage act. 



