WOMAN SUFFRAGE

the right of women to participate in politics on an equality with men. Undoubtedly the exclusion of women from this right is a survival of the natural exclusion of women from the war councils of the tribe, or nation, which may be considered the germ of the political state. With the growing cultural development of the nineteenth century, women began to grow conscious of this implied inferiority, and thus gave the impetus to the feminist movement, of which the question of suffrage has always been an important part. It is notable that on entering the Union, after the Revolution, New Jersey admitted women to suffrage, the only restriction being the po e ion of $250, and even that was removed in 1790. Seventeen years later, when profe ional politics had become the vocation of a certain cla of men, a law was pa ed excluding women from the suffrage. It is significant that at that time no protest was made, though this action might easily have been contested on the basis of being unconstitutional. Frances Wright, a Scotch woman, who came to _ this country in 1826, and Ernestine L. Rose, who came from Poland, in 1836, were the two women who first carried on agitation in the United States for the right of women to vote. Following them came Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Lydia Mott and Mary Fuller, who began their activities in about 1840. It was not until after the Civil War. however, that women of this type found a following. In 1869 the Women’s National Suffrage A ociation was formed, with the object of agitating for an amendment to the Federal Constitution in behalf of women’s suffrage. At about the same time the American Women’s Suffrage A ociation was founded, this organization differing from the other in that it strove to obtain suffrage in the individual states. In 1890 they united under the name of the National Women’s Suffrage A ociation, which established _headquarters in New York in 1903. Representatives of the a ociation have appeared before every Congre from 1869 to 1919. In 1869 Wyoming territory gave the suffrage to women through a provision in its constitution, and when it was admitted to the Union, in 1890, became the first state in which women were able to vote. Colorado was thie second state to grant the right, in 1893, after which other western states followed the example. In 1915 the first bill for women’s suffrage was presented before Congre , but was defeated in the House by 174 to 204 votes. Again the amendment was proposed, in 1918, and then pa ed in the House, with just one vote over the required two-thirds, but lacked two votes for pa ing in the Senate. President Wilson, after an urgent appeal for the pa age of the amendment, then ealled a special se ion of Congre , and the bill was pa ed in both houses, in the House on May 21, 1919, and in the Senate, on June 4, 1919, the House casting 42 votes more in favor than was required, and the Senate six. Within a week the legislatures of Illinois, Wisconsin and Michigan, being then in se ion, ratified the amendment. The thirty-sixth state to ratify (completing the nece ary two-thirds) was Tenne ee, which took this action on August 18, 1920. Ratification was defeated in Carolina, Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, Louisiana and North Carolina.