Woman Suffrage in Washington Territory
By JOHN MILLER MURPHY,
Editor of the Washington Standard, Olympia. Wash.
PROBABLY it was the drift of popular sentiment towards enlarging the sphere of American citizenship, and extending political privileges incident thereto, with special reference to the enfranchisement of the negro, which led to discussion of the propriety of extending the ballot to the women of this country, who had so unquestionably earned that privilege by their aid in making the government, as well as promoting its welfare whenever attacked by enemies from within or without. This question began to be agitated immediately at the close of the war, during the reconstruction period, and culminated in 1868 by the fourteenth amendment to the constitution, defining citizenship, and in 1870 by the fifteenth, declaring that the right to vote should not be denied, or abridged, on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.
It was just about forty years ago that the subject of woman's enfranchisement came up as a prominent political issue in Washington Territory by introduction of the measure in the legislature, when that noble woman, Susan B. Anthony, and the no less admirably persistent advocate, Abigail Scott Duniway, publisher and editor of the New Northwest, appeared in the legislative halls to advocate favorable action. While their earnest and logical appeals had a mighty effect, both on the law-makers and their constituents, the time was not yet ripe for action, and the measure was defeated, with about an equal number of both parties-—democrats and republicans—voting for it. About this time, likewise, the Washington Standard, a weekly newspaper published at the capital, became an earnest and determined advocate of the ballot for women, and for eighteen years, up to the passage of the suffrage act, persisted in the battle for equal and exact justice to be extended to the better portion of mankind.
It must be borne in mind that, fair as this proposition may seem, when gauged by ordinary methods of determination, there were many who were controlled by the most bitter prejudice, and they were not confined solely to the male sex. Many were the objections, mostly frivolous, but some entitled to consideration, because honestly held and because, too, of the fact that the measure was over untried grounds; but all had to be met and weighed to make opinion on which the proposition depended for success. Some thought that woman's sphere should be confined strictly to the home; others thought that the feminine mind was not capable of grasping or properly weighing the great matters of statecraft; still others thought it would be demoralizing to women to go to the polls, where they were likely to be jostled by the low and vicious. But woman's champions met these, and many other
