Suffrage Quotes

All that we require of a voter is that he shall be forked, wear pantaloons instead of petticoats, and bear a more or less humorous resemblance to the reported image of God. He need not know anything whatever; he may be wholly useless and a cumberer of the earth; he may even be known to be a consummate scoundrel. No matter. While he can steer clear of the penitentiary his vote is as weighty as the vote of a president, a bishop, a college professor, a merchant prince. We brag of our universal, unrestricted suffrage; but we are shams after all, for we restrict when we come to the women.

There is no reason to equivocate or lie about it. The Mississippi Constitutional Convention of 1890 was held for no other reason than to eliminate the nigger from politics…let the world know it just as it is.

When you become entitled to exercise the right of voting for public officers, let it be impressed on your mind that God commands you to choose for rulers just men who will rule in the fear of God. The preservation of a republican government depends on the faithful discharge of this duty.

Give the votes to people who have no property and they will sell them to the rich, who will be able to buy them.

As to those who have no landed property, ... the allowing them to vote for legislators is an impropriety.

If pigs could vote, the man with the slop bucket would be elected swineherd every time, no matter how much slaughtering he did on the side.

Elections belong to the people. It is their decision. If they decide to turn their back on the fire and burn their behinds, then they will just have to sit on their blisters.

We may lessen the danger of buying and selling votes, by making the number of voters too great for any means of purchase.

Let each citizen remember at the moment he is offering his vote...that he is executing one of the most solemn trusts in human society for which he is accountable to God and his country.

Two great duties which every citizen of proper age owes the republic: a wise and virtuous exercise of the right of suffrage; and a prompt and brave defense of the country in the hours of danger.

After meditation and prayer ... I conclude with melancholy that God lays upon me the revolting duty of voting for the numbskull, [Warren] Gamaliel [Harding], on the first Tuesday in November.

The definition of the right of suffrage is very justly regarded as a fundamental article of republican government.

If we took away women's right to vote, we'd never have to worry about another Democrat president.

Who are to be the electors of the Federal Representatives? Not the rich, more than the poor

Nobody under the age of 55 should be able to stand for election, and nobody under the age of 30 should be able to vote in those elections.

I will cut off this right arm of mine before I will ask for the ballot for the Negro and not for the woman.

If I were a woman, I'd simply refuse to speak to any man or do anything for men until I'd got the vote.

A woman running for President. There is not a thing in the Constitution to prohibit it. I cannot vote but I can be voted for.

I’m not intellectually convinced that one-man, one-vote is the best. We practise it because that’s what the British bequeathed us

The right to vote freely for the candidate of one’s choice is of the essence of a democratic society, and any restrictions on that right strike at the heart of representative government

Woman suffrage has made little difference beyond doubling the number of voters. There is no woman’s vote as such. They divide up just about as men do.

Women stock is rising in the market. I shall not live to see women vote, but I'll come and rap at the ballot box.

Representative institutions are of little value, and may be a mere instrument of tyranny or intrigue, when the generality of electors [voters] are not sufficiently interested in their own government to give their vote, or, if they vote at all, do not bestow their suffrages on public grounds, but sell them for money, or vote at the beck of some one who has control over them

The right to vote is the easiest of all rights to grant.

What we suffragettes aspire to be when we are enfranchised is ambassadors of freedom to women in other parts of the world, who are not so free as we are.