Today in History: April 4
Have women citizens the right of suffrage under the Constitution of the United States and of this particular State of Pennsylvania?Carrie S. Burnham, Woman Suffrage: The Argument of Carrie S. Burnham…,
Philadelphia, Citizen's Suffrage Association, 1873.
Votes for Women, 1848-1921
Votes for Women Postcard, Woman Suffrage Headquarters, New York, New York.
Votes for Women, 1848-1921
With this simple question, Carrie S. Burnham began her argument, made before the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania on April 3 and April 4, 1873, for her right to vote. "It is not simply," Burhnam reasoned, "whether I shall be protected in the exercise of my inalienable right and duty of self-government, but whether a government, the mere agent of the people, …can deny to any portion of its intelligent, adult citizens participation therein and still hold them amenable to its laws…"
Carrie Burnham's protest against the exclusion of women from the electorate began, in September 1871, when she took measures to comply with local election laws in the Fourteenth Ward of the City of Philadelphia. She attempted to vote on October 10, 1871.
When polling officials rejected her ballot, Burnham petitioned the Court of Common Pleas for the right to vote on the grounds that she met the legal definition of a "freeman" and a citizen of the United States. The Supreme Court of Pennsylvania disagreed. Woman Suffrage: The Argument of Carrie S. Burnham… includes the full text of Burnham's argument as well as a history of the case (beginning on page 88), and the text of the opinion of the Honorable George Sharwood, (beginning on page 94). Sharwood's opinion, delivered on December 30, 1871, was upheld by the Supreme Court on April 5, 1873.
To learn more about the women's suffrage movement:
- View One Hundred Years Toward Suffrage: An Overview, particularly the section on the years 1851-1899, to learn about the historical context of Burnham's legal battle. This timeline is a part of the collection "Votes for Women" Suffrage Pictures, 1850-1920 which contains images related to the women's suffrage movement.
- Documents related to the women's suffrage movement may be found in Votes for Women, 1848-1921. This collection consists of materials from the National American Woman Suffrage Association Collection, donated to the Library of Congress in 1938 by Carrie Chapman Catt.
- Today in History features on woman's suffrage include: the 1854 Ohio Woman's Rights Convention, the 1869 decision by the Wyoming Territory to grant women the right to vote, the 1884 address by Susan B. Anthony to the House Judiciary Committee, the 1885 birth of Alice Paul, and the 1917 arrest of suffragists in front of the White House. Also search the Today in History Archive under the term Seneca Falls.
- Pioneering Women in American Memory, a Feature Presentation of the Learning Page, provides an overview of American Memory resources for the study of women's history.
- In Carrie S. Burnham's day the Supreme Court looked very different from today's Supreme Court. To see the Supreme Court as it looked in 1873, when it shared space with the U.S. Congress in the Capitol, see To Throw the Labor of the Artist Upon the Shoulders of the President of the United States: The House and Senate Wings, part of the online exhibition Temple of Liberty: Building the Capitol for a New Nation.