Woman Suffrage Essay, Research Paper
The adult females & # 8217 ; s right to vote motion began in 1848 when a group of adult females met in
Seneca Falls New York. These adult females issued what became known as the Declaration
of Sentiments and Resolution s, and 11 platinum. papers sketching the demand for
equal rights. Al of the articles of the Declaration passed except for the right
to vote. It was widely believed at that clip, that adult females were both physically
and mentally inferior to work forces, and hence should non hold the right to vote.
The Seneca Falls convention was organized by a group of adult females who had been
active in the antislavery motion. When they were rejected as delegates to an
emancipationist convention because of their sex, they vowed to turn their attending
to adult females & # 8217 ; s rights. This convention attracted tonss of attending from the imperativeness,
largely negative. One of the organisers, Elizabeth cady Stanton, welcomed even
the negative attending. She said & # 8220 ; It might get down adult females believing ; and work forces to ;
when work forces and adult females think about a new inquiry they the first measure is taken.
Because of their engagement in the abolitionist motion, adult females had
learned to form, to keep public meetings, and behavior request runs.
As emancipationists, adult females foremost won the right to talk in public, and they began
to germinate a doctrine of their ain topographic point in society. When the 15th amendment,
which gave black work forces the power to vote, was passed adult females became ferocious. Julia
Ward Howe said & # 8220 ; For the first clip, we saw & # 8230 ; every Negro adult male govern every white
adult female. This seemed to me intollerable tyranny. & # 8221 ;
After the 15th amendment was passed, the adult females & # 8217 ; s right to vote motion
turned its attending towards deriving the right to vote province by province. Susan B.
Anthony, a leader in the motion, met a affluent man of affairs named George
Francis Train while runing in Kansas. He offered her the money to establish a
right to vote newspaper. In return he would be allowed to compose a column about
economic sciences. Therefore the Revolution was born. It & # 8217 ; s slogan was & # 8220 ; Men, their rights and
nil more ; adult females, their rights and nil less. & # 8221 ;
Lucy Stone and a group of conservative suffragists broke off from
Anthony & # 8217 ; s National Woman & # 8217 ; s suffrage Association and founded the American Woman
Suffrage Association. The NWSA attracted younger and more extremist adult females who
worked for a constitutional amendment to acquire the ballot. The AWSA directed its
attempts toward acquiring provinces to give adult females the right to vote. Anthony believed
that this would take to long and tried to the the tribunals to declare that voting
is the right of all citizens. She based this belief on the fact that the 14th
& lt ;< p>amendment made adult females citizens. In 1872 she went to the polls and cast her
concert dance for president. Two hebdomads subsequently she was arrested for voting illicitly.
Virginia Minor, a friend of Anthony & # 8217 ; s and president of the Missouri Woman
Suffrage Association, tried to vote in 1872. The election registries refused
to allow her project her concert dance, so she brought a suit against them. She claimed
that they had interfered with her right as a citizen to vote. The Supreme tribunal
ruled that the Constitution & # 8220 ; does non confabulate the right of right to vote upon anyone,
and that the fundamental laws and Torahs of several provinces which commit that
of import trust to work forces entirely are non needfully void. & # 8221 ; intending that the
Fundamental law does non give the right to vote to everyone and that the
fundamental laws and Torahs of the provinces that merely let work forces to vote are non
needfully invalid.
In 1878 Senator Aaron Sargent of California eventually introduced the
proposed the Sixteenth amendment which many people called the Anthony Amendment.
This amendment stated & # 8220 ; The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall
non be denied or abridged by the United States or any province on history of sex. & # 8221 ;
This amendment remained unchanged and unpassed for fourty-two old ages even though
both the House and Senate commissions favored it. Some argued that the
amendment would destruct places and interrupt up households. Others argued that the
ballot would degrade adult females. Senator George C. Vest explained why he felt this manner,
& # 8220 ; It would take her down from that base where she is today, influencing by
her gentle and kindly caress the actiuon of her hubby towards the good and the
pure. & # 8221 ;
Meanwhile none of the desperate effects predicted by the antisuffragists
had occured in the few provinces where adult females voted. In 1869 the Wyoming District
adopted a fundamental law allowing both work forces and adult females the right to vote. When they
asked to fall in the brotherhood they were pressured to ostracize the adult females & # 8217 ; s right to vote.
Wyoming stood house and even adopted the motto & # 8220 ; America will be a better topographic point to
unrecorded when adult females go to the polls. & # 8221 ; Until the early 1900 & # 8217 ; s, merely a few provinces,
all of them western, had granted adult females the right to vote. By this clip the two
organisations had merged to organize the National American Woman Suffrage
Association.
On June 4, 1919 adult females were eventually granted the right to vote. Congress
ratified the 19th amendment to the Constitution which stated that no citizen
could be denied the right to vote & # 8220 ; on history of sex & # 8221 ; . This triumph was non
merely for adult females, but for democracy and the rule of equality upon which our
great state was founded.