History of Woman Suffrage and Voting Rights Today
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H-Kentucky Connections between Kentucky and Tennessee - history of woman suffrage and voting rights today Blog Post published by Randolph Hollingsworth on Wednesday, August 2, 2017 This post was co-written by Dr. Randolph Hollingsworth (coordinator for theKentucky Woman Suffrage Project) and Dr. Margaret Spratt (coordinator for the Tennessee entries for the Women and Social Movements in the U.S. project on woman suffrage) as they consider a proposal to the National Endowment for the Humanities for a community outreach project to include both Kentucky and Tennessee: In Kentucky, the suffragists Laura Clay and Madeline McDowell Breckinridge held a debate in 1919 focusing on the differences in political ideology that impact state and municipal powers as a check on federal power. In Tennessee, well-organized pro-suffrage groups put pressure on the governor and state legislature to become the thirty-sixth state to ratify the Nineteenth Amendment. It was a contentious battle in both states with a dramatic ending that illustrates numerous issues surrounding voting rights. Issues surrounding voting rights today connect strongly with woman suffrage history. Some examples of how the main questions connect with historical events are: A. How does voting contribute to one’s role as a citizen? Examples: Legislators in the Gilded Age were often swayed by the argument that allowing women the right to vote would “clean up” the political corruption and halt the excesses of the era’s robber barons and the horrifying violence of white supremacists. Women’s perspectives, they thought, would bring new views on how to build a better nation. Under Kentucky’s state constitution, persons convicted of a felony are stripped of their rights to vote, hold public office, own a firearm or serve on a jury. Today in only three states (KY, FL, IO) disenfranchises citizens with past criminal convictions for non- violent crimes. B. Where does the authority reside to regulate voting rights? How should that authority be implemented? Examples: Debates raged about whether voting rights should be legislated at the national, state or the local level. That debate continues today with the most recent example of Secretaries of State in a number of states refusing efforts by a Presidential commission to provide detailed voter data. The basic issue is to determine the balance between federal and state powers - whether we should have a national database determining citizenship status for voting or keep voter registration issues at the state and local levels. C. Who or what groups should determine what restrictions might be instituted on who can vote? What qualifications for voting such as literacy, race, immigration status, are acceptable in a democratic society? Examples: Factions were concerned about allowing African American and immigrant women to vote with passage of the “Susan B. Anthony” amendment - that which became the 19th Amendment. Today, while easing voter restrictions might garner higher voter turnouts, many states are working to set up voter ID laws which have been shown to suppress minority votes. The history of the U.S. is crucial to understanding the meaning of the right to vote today. The Citation: Randolph Hollingsworth. Connections between Kentucky and Tennessee - history of woman suffrage and voting rights today. H-Kentucky. 09-11-2018. https://networks.h-net.org/node/2289/blog/ky-woman-suffrage/189473/connections-between-kentucky-and-tennessee-history Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. 1 H-Kentucky foundation of a representative government posited John Locke is the citizen who is vested in the community: in colonial times this meant property ownership. Some women owned property and had the right to vote – but with the new nation being built after the American Revolution, state constitutions reinstated older misogynistic traditions from Europe and by 1807, New Jersey was the last of the colonial era to disenfranchise women. Nevertheless, women of the New Republic were seen as crucial participants in developing the morals and understandings of the youth who would become active citizens in their hometowns, states, and in the new nation. Kentucky became the first in the nation to pass a statewide woman suffrage law. Kentucky’s law passed in 1838 allowed female heads-of-household to vote in elections deciding on taxes and local boards for the county “common school” system. We know today – as did the political leaders in the nineteenth century – that an active citizen is one that is able to gather in a group to voice grievances and discuss solutions to present to their political representatives, hold public office themselves, or serve on a jury. But even more importantly, voting is part of establishing a collective political voice needed to maintain a democracy. Studies of people today have shown that individuals who vote are more likely to give to charity, volunteer, attend school board meetings, and are more actively involved in their communities. We need all our citizens to become active – and raise our participation rates in voting during local, state and national elections. In the past, however, people of color and all women were left out of this definition of citizenship. Much of our historical narratives, both at the national level and in local history site interpretations, leave out the history of woman suffrage. These Community Conversations can raise the visibility of state and local histories of activism and debates over whether or not women (of all backgrounds and experiences) were full citizens with the right to vote. Kentucky was crucial as a gateway to the South for women’s rights activists. Lucy Stone came through Louisville in November 1853 – wearing her own version of Amelia Bloomer trousers – earned $600 with thousands packing the halls each night. During the Civil War, Dr. Mary Walker was mustered in and served as the head of the female prison in Louisville – earning the Medal of Honor for her bravery under fire which she wore with her full male attire despite arrests. But dress reform efforts were not part of an effort to reject womanhood. Their activism through choice of clothing was to display women’s readiness for rigorous participation in public reform movements and political events. Kentuckians, while most were skeptical, began to endorse dress reform and the accompanying physical education efforts that were associated with less restrictive clothing. Tennessean women too were always involved in horseriding, and one of the earliest competitions between the two states was on the racetrack in the Sport of Champions. Eventually bicycling, automobile driving, basketball and calisthenics become a part of Kentucky and Tennessee women’s exercise, proving that women’s bodies could sustain the physical efforts required of an active citizenry. After the Civil War, the 13th Amendment was ratified by 2/3 of the states; ratification came quickly in Tennessee but not in Kentucky until 1976. The newly freed people celebrated in both states assuming that they would become citizens like their former masters. On January 1, 1866, Lexington’s Main Street was filled with African Americans in a military parade, followed by Black businesspeople and several hundred children with political speeches at Lexington Fairgrounds (now the University of Citation: Randolph Hollingsworth. Connections between Kentucky and Tennessee - history of woman suffrage and voting rights today. H-Kentucky. 09-11-2018. https://networks.h-net.org/node/2289/blog/ky-woman-suffrage/189473/connections-between-kentucky-and-tennessee-history Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. 2 H-Kentucky Kentucky). By March a Black Convention was held in Lexington to discuss equal rights for Blacks. The next year, for July 4th, a barbecue organized in Lexington by Black women included speeches made by both Black and by White speakers in favor of black suffrage and ratification of the 14th Amendment. That fall, another Black Convention included a debate on how to gain full civil rights for Blacks, including the right to vote and the right to testify in court against whites. In Tennessee, which had also very quickly ratified the 14th Amendment, allowing for three African American men to be elected to the legislature and many others elected to municipal and state offices. On July 28, 1868, the 14th Amendment was ratified (again not by Kentucky) – granting full citizenship rights to “all persons born or naturalized in the U.S.” which included the former slaves as well as immigrant families who had been denied their rights. It also for the first time included the term “male inhabitants” in relation to those with the right to vote unhindered in federal elections. Elizabeth Cady Stanton wrote in her newspaper The Revolution in 1868: “Think of Patrick and Sambo and Hans and Yung Tung who do not know the difference between a monarchy and a republic, who never read the Declaration of Independence or Webster’s spelling book…” She asserted that immigrants and blacks were uneducated, thus not qualified to vote. This attitude generally predominated in both the north and the south, but in the former slave states, this idea was honed into both civil action and legal opinion quickly with the rise of the various societies proclaiming white supremacy. This controversy spilled over into the women’s rights movement. Most most people today are familiar with the group of 68 women and 32 men in 1848 that met at Seneca Falls and signed the Declaration of Rights and Sentiments drafted by Elizabeth Cady Stanton. Fewer are aware that there were other gatherings, and in 1850 the first National Women’s Rights Convention met in Worcester, Massachusetts with over 1000 attendees and delegates from at least 11 states. So it was from the 11th National Women’s Rights Convention and a merger with former abolitionists that the American Equal Rights Association (AERA) formed after the Civil War to lobby the new federal government and the states for full rights for all citizens.