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Tag(s): Essex; History; Jersey; Newark; Voter Disenfranchisement; Voter Fraud; Women; Women Discrimination; Women Equal Rights; Women Issues Contraception
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August 31, 2008 at 20:51:13

New Jersey Women Could Vote In 1776. Why Was That Right Taken From Them

by Robert Arend Page 1 of 1 page(s)

www.opednews.com

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Did you know women could vote in New Jersey as far back as 1776? I didn't until I learned about this historical truth from "George Washington On Leadership"- author Richard Brookhiser on the August 28, 2008 Colbert Report.

Intrigued, I decided to do some research to satisfy my curiousity of just what caused the women of New Jersey to lose their right to vote in 1807.

My, my, my, it appears some dastardly politician did them in for voting in large numbers for his opponent ten years before.

"New Jersey granted women the vote (with the same property qualifications as for men, although, since married women did not own property in their own right, only unmarried women and widows qualified) under the state constitution of 1776, where the word "inhabitants" was used without qualification of sex or race. New Jersey women, along with "aliens...persons of color, or negroes," lost the vote in 1807, when the franchise was restricted to white males, partly in order, ostensibly at least, to combat electoral fraud by simplifying the conditions for eligibility."-

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women's_suffrage

In 1806, a new court house was proposed for Essex County to replace the old one at Newark. Elizabethtown wanted that new courthouse and, with a majority of themselves on the local board, waylaid Newark. To bring fairness to the matter, the New Jersey legislature passed a law ordering a vote to determine the location of the new court house. The ferocity of the divide eventually reached a point when it became unsafe for Elizabethians to even visit Newark. The voting, which began February 10, 1806, started out with civility, then fraud became rampant. By February 12th, the last voting day, fraudulent voting went beyond all shame: many voters unscreened and repeating their votes from polling place to polling place. Even nonresidents were transported in to fatten the vote for Newark. Women and girls voted again and again, and even men and boys disguised themselves as women in order to repeat their votes. Newark won. Elizabethtown lost. But Elizabethtown petitioned the legislature for a new election due to the obvious vote fraud. The legislature agreed. The election voided. A new election law under consideration was immediately amended by Mr. Condict, a republican candidate of 1797 who's political career was nearly terminated, then, by a hugh women's vote for his opponent. His amendment contained a provision stripping away the right to vote from all women residing in New Jersey. He cited the voting fraud of the largely female (and cross-dressing males) in Essex over the new courthouse. The bill passed both houses by heavy majorities to become law. The women of New Jersey appeared largely indifferent to losing their voting rights. For a detailed history of these events, go to:

http://www.archive.org/details/womenssuffragein00turnuoft

the source from which most of my brief research was extracted from.

Recently retired. President of a AFSCME local from 1997-2007. More a commenter to a blog article than article writer. Really enjoy well-written analysis of our times.

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In 2004, Rady Ananda joined the growing community of citizen journalists. Focused mainly on elections, her blogs also address religious, gender, sexual and racial equality, as well as environmental issues; and are sprinkled with book and film reviews on various topics. She spent most of her working life as a legal investigator for private lawyers, and five years as an editor. She currently serves as a senior editor at OpEdNews.

All material offered here is the property of Rady A...

to see more of bio, click on member name
Rady AnandaIn 2004, Rady Ananda joined the growing community of citizen journalists. Focused mainly on elections, her blogs also address religious, gender, sexual and racial equality, as well as environmental issues; and are sprinkled with book and film reviews on various topics. She spent most of her working life as a legal investigator for private lawyers, and five years as an editor. She currently serves as a senior editor at OpEdNews.

All material offered here is the property of Rady A...

to see more of bio, click on member name

Women voted in all but 4 colonies

See Iron Jawed Angels, where I give a brief history of women's suffrage. After we won the Revolutionary War, each state revoked the right of women to vote.

A Brief Herstory of Voting

Women voted in most of the American Colonies, except in four that specifically excluded them. In New Jersey, woman suffrage lasted from 1664 to 1807, and in Massachusetts from 1691-1780. As with men, restrictions applied but were not uniformly enforced. Indisputably, more restrictions applied to women than to men. [1]

In the heady days after defeating the English in 1783, States frantically rewrote their laws specifically disenfranchising women. By 1807, all states had rescinded their right to vote. What was good for the gander was apparently not good for the goose.

In 1792, Mary Wollstonecraft wrote her seminal book, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, which inspired the American woman suffrage movement. Later leaders organized a national conference in 1848 and began winning back the franchise, state by state. Starting in 1869 in Wyoming, and 1870 in Utah, American women again enjoyed the franchise.

In the 71 years following the Seneca Falls Convention, Western states yielded to suffragist demands. Prior to passage of the 19th Amendment to the US Constitution in 1919, women voted in 26 states, but only in federal elections in 12 of them.

by Rady Ananda (124 articles, 283 quicklinks, 36 diaries, 1061 comments) on Monday, September 1, 2008 at 12:26:32 AM

Amanda is a managing editor at OpEdNews and has worked with Rob Kall on the site since 2004. A retired research ethnographer specializing in organization and technological innovation and strategic business development, she now resides in Georgia where she builds and restores wooden and fiberglass boats with her husband, Tom, a retired electrical engineer. Amanda grew up in the Commonwealth of Kentucky on the 9AA that runs along the Ohio in an area that gave the world Larry Flynt, the Clooneys, R...

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Amanda LangAmanda is a managing editor at OpEdNews and has worked with Rob Kall on the site since 2004. A retired research ethnographer specializing in organization and technological innovation and strategic business development, she now resides in Georgia where she builds and restores wooden and fiberglass boats with her husband, Tom, a retired electrical engineer. Amanda grew up in the Commonwealth of Kentucky on the 9AA that runs along the Ohio in an area that gave the world Larry Flynt, the Clooneys, R...

to see more of bio, click on member name

Watch out...they're coming after women's contraception again

If US women are not careful, they will the Religious Right and the GOP to deliver a similar blow to women's access to reproductive healthcare, access to birth control and family planning resources, and ultimately a woman's right to "choose" when and if she is ready to become a mother even in cases of rape and incest.

You might say the Republican Party wants to institute a "Rapist's Bill of Rights" were the rapist gets to "choose" who will be the mother of his child while she has no choice whatsoever. Where's the democracy in that?

Incest? Would you want to spend the rest of your life being reminded everytime you looked into your child's eyes that 1) he/she will face the possibility of birth defects in their own children because of the genetic risks of having two parents share genetic material, and 2) a male family member destroyed your life, dashed your dreams, and you didn't have a damn say about it. Seeds of child abuse sown so that family dysfunction flourishes. Where is the humanity is this?

They are coming after us, and young women won't know what hit them until it's too late. Bush is busy at work right now banning access to birth control by deliberately confusing it with abortion.

by Amanda Lang (23 articles, 13845 quicklinks, 431 diaries, 593 comments) on Monday, September 1, 2008 at 2:42:15 PM