The Road to Women's Voting Rights in North Dakota

Women, like all citizens, have always had the RIGHT to vote, but they lacked legal access to the ballot. The notion that laws restricting women's civic rights should be changed emerged from the first women's rights convention in Seneca Falls, NY, in 1848. The movement became infused over the ensuing 72 years with arguments about women's roles, the promise of the nation's founding documents, and the nature of women's contributions to civic life.

In 1868, Dakota Territorial House member Enos Stutsman proposed a woman suffrage bill. It passed the House, but was burdened with ridiculous amendments in the Council. It did not pass, but the issue did not die. Throughout the territory women and men kept suffrage alive in newspaper articles and public debates. Men who sat in legislative bodies introduced suffrage bills; men brought the issue to constitutional conventions; men and women wrote letters to newspapers commenting on women's right to vote.

In 1883, Dakota Territory provided for women to vote in school elections. The legislature passed the bill with little commotion because legislators considered school matters appropriate for women. Women marked separate ballots limited to school issues and often used separate ballot boxes. School ballots involved county superintendent and school board contests.

At statehood in 1889, school suffrage was written into the North Dakota constitution. Full woman suffrage was vigorously debated, but was finally left to future legislatures and voters. The resulting clause required that a suffrage law had to have the votes of the majority of all voters in the election. Only men could vote.

North Dakota women joined local suffrage clubs and national organizations, but there was no effective statewide organization until 1912 when Clara Darrow organized the Votes for Women League. Suffragists had a strong alliance and overlapping memberships with temperance (prohibition) clubs led by Elizabeth Preston Anderson.

Together, suffragists and temperance advocates began to apply political power in the legislature and in towns around the state. However, when a suffrage bill passed the 1913 legislature and came to the voters in 1914, the constitutional clause revealed its power to obstruct the will of the people. Though a majority of the men who voted on the measure approved its passage, those who did not vote on the measure were counted as voting against it. The measure failed.

In 1917, North Dakota suffragists applied a new strategy. They introduced a bill that offered women extended suffrage. The bill named specific offices for women to vote on including U. S. president and county and township offices, but women could not vote for governor or legislators because these offices were identified in the suffrage clause of the constitution. The partial suffrage bill did not face the same requirements for passage as did the 1914 measure and won legislative approval.

By 1919, North Dakota women had demonstrated their ability to carry out civic duties. When Congress passed the 19th amendment, North Dakota legislators and the governor were prepared by previous events to support the amendment.

Why celebrate the centennial of the 19th Amendment?

The second decade of the 20th Century was a time of great social and economic experiment in the United States. People demanded and created social, political and economic changes, some of which needed to be addressed by revisions in the Constitution.

Congress passed and the states ratified four constitutional amendments between 1913 and 1920, the most constitutional activity our nation had seen since the 1790s.

Of these four amendments, we are celebrating nationwide only the 19th. The 16th Amendment gave Congress the right to collect income taxes – useful, but not much to celebrate there. The 17th amendment allowed the direct election of Senators – worthy of celebration, perhaps, but largely ignored and unknown today. The 18th amendment prohibited alcoholic beverages – an amendment fondly pursued by the Woman's Christian Temperance Union, but not really celebrated until its repeal in 1933.

But the 19th Amendment, guaranteeing women the right to exercise a voice in government through the vote, was widely celebrated in 1920 when it passed and rightly celebrated today as we approach its centenary. On Dec 1, 1919, North Dakota was the 20th state to approve the amendment (of the required 36). It wasn't a unanimous vote in the North Dakota House or Senate, but the amendment passed by a large margin. Not every state approved the amendment before the 1920 deadline – Mississippi didn't get around to it until 1984.

Why does this amendment, unlike the others of that period, deserve attention 100 years later? We celebrate knowing that the goal was righteous. But the application of suffrage expansion was flawed. In 1920, many citizens were unable to take advantage of their new opportunity to vote.

This amendment advanced voting rights, but large gaps in the voting public remained. Historians estimate only about 25% of African-American women lived where Jim Crow laws and customs did not prevent them from voting. Although many American Indians had achieved citizenship status, states and counties still limited their access to the polls and, of course, that included women.

We celebrate today the expansion of citizenship privileges in 1920, with a clear understanding it was not the final piece in building our democracy. The process continued throughout the twentieth century and the debates over voting rights and access continue today.

We celebrate the 19th amendment to honor the women who trained themselves in democratic procedures through the Votes for Women Leagues, who entered into public life through reform organizations, and who crafted political arguments and public actions that, over the course of 72 years, resulted in the passage of the 19th amendment.

These women, and the men who supported suffrage, had faith that the institutions of this nation would respond to their call for a stronger democracy through expanded voting rights. We celebrate to renew that faith. We celebrate not only their strength, their patience, their faith, but the privileges of citizenship they bequeathed us.

Dr.Barbara Handy-Marchello is a historian and co-chair of the North Dakota Woman Suffrage Centennial Committee.