Timothy Howe Quotes
They exercise it by proxy, as we all know. Females send their votes to the ballot box by their husbands or other male friends.
Howe said women should be officially deprived of the ballot because of this reason.
Timothy Howe, 1816-1883, U.S. Senator (Republican, Wisconsin), Quoted in Nancy Cott, Public Vows, 2000
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
Having passed this law, the state legislature turned down subsequent efforts to expand the female voting franchise, and Wisconsin women had to wait until all American women finally got the right to vote.
Although Campaigning in the heart of the conservative Midwest, she had no compunction about advocating women’s suffrage.
The concept of taxpayers being entitled to vote to avoid taxation without representation was fundamental to the Founding Fathers. However, the only people who paid taxes were those who owned property as there was no income tax at the time. Since the male controlled the family property, not allowing women to vote did no injury to the basic principle. However, the sexist attitude of the times ran up against this basic principles in the case of widows and unmarried women who owned property. Faced with this contradiction, some of the Founding Fathers like Lee actually favored the voting franchise for women who were widows and property owners or even unmarried female property owners. There were not enough people who saw this contradiction so that all women were originally prohibited from voting, but this quotation shows that it was a political issue at the time.
The editorial was in support of women’s suffrage—the right to vote which at the time women did not have in Britain. Women were very active in protests and demonstrations. Tactics sometimes involved civil disobedience and chaining themselves to public buildings. It was the civil disobedience and disruptions that the newspaper referred to as the “follies and excesses.” In retrospect today, it is amazing how threatened the society felt and how they reacted to the “threat” of females voting. It does however give us a perspective on those contemporary societies which restrict women’s voting rights.
This was more than 30 years earlier than the United States.
Although liberal on many other issues, women voting was anathema to him.
The Organization's Periodical. The statement was repeated several times in variation between 1890 and 1920. This organization was the national leader of similar organizations in over 20 States. Many notables were involved including Louis D. Brandeis, Francis Parkman and John Lowell.
Hunt gave as an example Mary Smith of Stanmore. This quotation is very interesting in the history of women’s suffrage. Hunt was a strong advocate for Universal Suffrage (See {616653}.) At the time, even men had to be a taxpayer and own a sufficient amount of property to vote. Less than 20% of the population of Britain were allowed to vote. The argument at the time was that the husband would represent the family’s interest at the ballot box and there was no need for women to vote. But by facing parliament with the logical inconsistency of its position, he was able to make his point, although there were very few women like Mary Smith who were single and had the economic resources to qualify. Most widows remarried so even if they had economic resources, there was a man who could assume the then perceived role of head of the household.
Samuel Langhorne Clemens, 1835-1910
Timothy Otis Howe was a member of the United States Senate for three terms, representing the state of Wisconsin from March 4, 1861, to March 3, 1879. He also served as U.S. Postmaster General under President Chester A. Arthur from 1881 until his death in 1883. Earlier in his career, he was a Justice of the Wisconsin Supreme Court.
