Elective Franchise Quotes
In this famous declaration, Stanton summarized the relative status of men and women in the society at that time. Women then could not control their own property, have their own money. “Chastisement” referred to the fact that a husband could then legally discipline his wife physically and beat her if she were not suvviciently obedient.
At the time, this not only was true but there were few who argued that it should be different. It was the gross abuse of the control of the elective franchise by the Southern states after Blacks had been given the right to vote and continuing into the 1960s, that the Federal Government passed the Voting Rights Act. In the election of 2000, Al Gore had won by a narrow margin as the result of decisions of the Florida Courts finding that Gore had won the state, The Supreme Court, however, overrode Florida and by a 5-4 partisan vote gave Florida and hence the election to George W. Bush. Bingham’s principle had fallen completely.
The letter was also published in the Charleston Mercury, February 13, 1861. Anti slavery sentiment was by no means limited to the North. Moral and competitive objections were made from the earliest colonial times and extended right up to the Civil War.
