Woman Suffrage by Federal Constitutional Amendment | Page 6

take the trouble to vote is as much to be feared as the man who votes
against.
[Footnote B: Dodd, W.F. Revision and Amendment of State
Constitutions.]
A majority vote is required by the constitution of Indiana that is so
extravagant as to have caused contradictory decisions in the courts. The
constitution reads: "The General Assembly ... (shall) submit such
amendment ... to the electors of the state, and if a majority of said
electors shall ratify." This was interpreted in one case (156 Ind. 104) to
mean a majority of all votes cast at the election, but in a later case (in re
Denny) it was taken, exactly as it reads, to mean all the people in the
State eligible to vote--and this in the face of the fact that the number of
people eligible to vote is unknown even to the Federal Census
Department. Indiana also requires that while one amendment is under
consideration no other can be introduced. She is, needless to say, one of
the states whose constitution has never been amended.
Other states besides Indiana have time requirements to insure the
immutability of their inspired state document. Thus the Vermont
Constitution can be amended only once in ten years--it was last
amended in 1913--and five others set a term of years before the same
amendment can be submitted again. Among these are New Jersey and
Pennsylvania, which having submitted the Woman Suffrage
amendment in 1915 cannot do so again till 1920.[A]
[Footnote A: The five states are Illinois (four years), Pennsylvania,
New Jersey and Kentucky (five years), and Tennessee (six years).]
In no state is the Constitution so safeguarded from change as in New
Mexico, whose iron-bound rules are in a class by themselves. For the
first twenty-five years of statehood a three-fourths vote of both houses
of the Legislature ratified by three-fourths of the electors voting, with
two-thirds at least from each county, will be required to change the
suffrage clause. After twenty-five years the majority will be reduced to

two-thirds. This is the state whose Constitution provides that illiteracy
shall never be a bar to the suffrage; her democracy falls short only in
the matter of women whom she makes it constitutionally impossible
ever to add to her electorate.
Where constitutions can be revised by the convention method as well
as by amendment there is some hope; if amendment fails revision holds
out a chance. But twelve states[A] hold no constitutional conventions;
in Maryland conventions are twenty years apart and in many other
states it is as difficult to call a constitutional convention as to revise the
Constitution by amendment.
[Footnote A: Louisiana, Texas, Mississippi, North Dakota, Arkansas,
Connecticut, Indiana, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Rhode
Island and Virginia.]
New Hampshire amends by constitutional convention alone and these
conventions are held infrequently.
Only in Delaware is the Constitution amended to-day by act of the
Legislature without the people's vote and without any technical
requirements except a large Legislative majority.
Yet in twenty-four states[A] before the Civil War the foundations of
male suffrage were laid by legislature or constitutional convention
alone, and in many cases, furthermore, the conditions of suffrage were
dictated by the Federal Government. Even as late as the '90's five State
Constitutions were adopted, suffrage clause and all, by State
Legislatures or constitutional conventions without the referendum.[B]
[Footnote A: New Hampshire, South Carolina, Virginia, Pennsylvania,
North Carolina, Georgia, New York, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New
Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, Vermont, Kentucky, Florida, Tennessee,
Ohio, Louisiana, Indiana, Mississippi, Illinois, Alabama, Missouri and
Arkansas.]
[Footnote B: Many reconstruction constitutions also but these were not
permanent. The five constitutions in the 90's were Mississippi, South

Carolina, Delaware, Louisiana and Virginia, and Kentucky made
changes after the constitution had been submitted.]
In the other states universal male suffrage came easily at a time when
thinly populated states wanted to hold out inducements to male
immigrant labor. To-day any male once naturalized, and in some states
before he is naturalized, becomes automatically a voting citizen of any
state in the Union after he has fulfilled the state residence requirements
and, in some states, an educational requirement.
The one word "male" shut women out in the old days from these easy
avenues to citizenship and to-day her path by the state by state method
is beset by almost insuperable difficulties.
CHAPTER III.
ELECTION LAWS AND REFERENDA
To establish a "government of the people" is to follow an ideal set by
the growth of democratic principles, but, after such government has
been established by a constitution, it remains to be determined how the
will of the people is to be recorded and each state accordingly has
enacted an election law to provide for registration and for taking the
vote. These laws are so defective as to give unquestioned advantage to
dishonesty and corruption