Women’s Suffrage Blog, Part 2: Voting Rights in Early America

By Abby Tuomala, Blue Ridge Chapter,
National Society, Daughters of the American Revolution (NSDAR)

Canvassing for Votes, 1757, courtesy of the METropolitan Museum of Art

To understand the “mindset” of most Americans regarding the role of women for three hundred years before the passage of the 19th Amendment, we must remember that Americans were fully cultured Europeans who possessed the entirety of their political, religious, and societal convictions when they settled here.  

Among the deeply held convictions they brought with them were biblical instructions about the family and the relationship between man and woman.  Presented in Christian scripture, from the beginning, woman was presented as the “meet” (suitable, or comparable) helper for the man[i],as together they were charged with tending and keeping the earth.[ii]  The early settlers earnestly believed this and structured their families around the biblical patterns of the family as an economic unit, with the man as the “federal” (representative) head of the household.

Thus, citizenship rights came to be seen as head-of-household-down propositions.  The family was seen as the tending-and-keeping economic unit, and the man was seen as the representative head of that unit.  It would have been unthinkable that a family’s civic participation would represent a “house divided.”[iii]

Interestingly, participation in the rights and privileges of citizenship were tied to the labors of these economic units, the families.  In his 1988 book The Origins of American Constitutionalism, Donald S. Lutz provides us with valuable insights into our colonial forebears’ views of citizenship.  Citizenship was tied to community, and the voting franchise was tied to property and paying taxes.  

Today . . . we are inclined to assume, or hope, that out of many individuals pursuing their respective interests will come the community good.  Americans during the founding era began with the good of the community and assumed, or hoped, that individual interests would not lead some astray.  If conflict arose between an individual and the community, the former was assumed to be mistaken.

A basic equality of liberty held, regardless of wealth, intelligence, or virtue, so long as one could demonstrate having the minimum requisite for consent giving [i.e., voting]—an independent will.  One way to determine its presence was a property test.  During the founding era, if there was a property requirement at all, it was ownership of fifty acres of land or property rentable for forty shillings a year.  In America, that excluded surprisingly few white adult males, since land was plentiful and cheap.  Those so excluded from voting ranged from 20 percent in parts of New England to 75 percent in Georgia.  Overall, and evidence produces conflicting figures, between 35 percent and 50 percent of white adult males failed to meet the property requirement throughout the colonies during the 1780s.

However, while the test was considered appropriate for indicating an independent will, it was not the only test, and it was not slavishly applied.  It was the best means for estimating involvement and stake in the community, for showing virtues in the form of industry, frugality, moderation, and practical sense, and for demonstrating a secure financial base so a person could resist bribery and economic inducements to sell his vote. . . .  Sheriffs and local magistrates extended the vote to many who could not pass the property test but who were known to be independent in will, sound in character, and contributing members of the community.  In the cities and large towns, anyone paying taxes was usually allowed to vote.  Communities generally preferred not to apply the test in such a way as to preclude their judging the merits of an individual case.[iv]

These early litmus tests for voting are instructive, showing us the correlation between property ownership and the voting franchise, which our colonial ancestors obviously took very seriously.  We shall see that the struggle for women to own property closely parallels the struggle for suffrage.  In the case of enslaved men and women, the struggle for suffrage was bound together with the struggle for freedom, equality, and equity under the law.

Today, Americans may think of the right to vote as guaranteed by virtue of living in this country.  This present circumstance was not easily achieved.  Compare our colonial voting practices to that of Great Britain at the time of U.S. independence:

A survey conducted in 1780 revealed that the electorate in England and Wales consisted of just 214,000 people - less than 3% of the total population of approximately 8 million.  In Scotland the electorate was even smaller: in 1831 a mere 4,500 men, out of a population of more than 2.6 million people, were entitled to vote in parliamentary elections.[v]

We can thank the Founding Fathers for their genius in framing this democratic republic and the Founding Mothers for ensuring that all Americans would eventually enjoy the privileges of full citizenship.[vi]

Abigail adams, courtesy of the Library of Congress

In looking at America’s colonial era, we can observe that the long-standing views of family, family-headship, citizenship rights being associated with virtue, and virtue being associated with property, informed voting rights.  These factors may help us to understand why there was such a long haul in the United States to the 19th Amendment in 1920. Next time, we will see how the industrial revolution provoked women to advocate for humane workplace treatment, educational opportunities, the abolition of slavery, the opioid crisis of the day (alcohol abuse), and other factors that led to the insistence of women’s voting rights.

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[i] Genesis 2:18.

[ii] Genesis 2:15.

[iii] Mark 3:25.

[iv] Donald S. Lutz, The Origins of American Constitutionalism (Louisiana State University Press, 1988), 75-76.

[v] http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/pathways/citizenship/struggle_democracy/getting_vote.htm.

[vi]  In 1776, as her husband [John Adams] participated in the First Continental Congress in Philadelphia, [Abigail] Adams wrote her most famous letter that the Founding Fathers “remember the ladies.”  She added, “Do not put such unlimited power into the hands of the husbands. Remember all men would be tyrants if they could.”  https://www.womenshistory.org/education-resources/biographies/abigail-adams