Voting Eligibility Quotes
Samuel Langhorne Clemens, 1835-1910
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.
A counter ethical argument says that voter suppression is ethically no different from gerrymandering, or having too few locations for voting, or voting on a Tuesday where poor people cannot often get to the polls with work and/or child obligations. For Republicans to suppress Black voting is only logical since such a high percentage of Blacks vote Democratic. It would be the same if Democratic legislatures could make it difficult for business executives to vote. It part of the rough and tumble reality of American politics.
This was a year after the United States gave women the right to vote.
He was referring to Negroes who did not then have the fight to vote.
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.
