[Congressional Record Volume 165, Number 28 (Wednesday, February 13, 2019)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1321-S1322]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
150TH ANNIVERSARY OF WOMEN'S SUFFRAGE
Mr. BARRASSO. Mr. President, today, Wyoming Governor Mark Gordon will
sign a joint resolution of the Wyoming Legislature recognizing December
10, 2019, as Wyoming Women's Suffrage Day.
On December 10, 1869, the Wyoming Territory passed the first law in
U.S. history granting women the right to vote and hold public office.
This right became so important to the people of Wyoming that, when the
State sought statehood, it refused to enter the Union if this right was
not protected.
In 2015, I came to the floor to speak in honor of the 125th
anniversary of Wyoming statehood. I shared with the Senate the
challenge Wyoming faced from Congress in its quest to become a member
of the Union. I believe it is timely to share that story again.
The debate in Congress was contentious, with the arguments centering
on one of our most proud accomplishments: a decision made long before
Wyoming became a State. On December 10, 1869, the Wyoming Territory was
the first in the United States to grant women the right to vote.
Efforts to attain statehood finally came to fruition 20 years later.
It was incumbent on our delegate to the U.S. House of Representatives,
Joseph M. Carey, to convince his colleagues to support the statehood
bill.
On March 26, 1890, the day of the statehood bill debate, Joseph Carey
spoke passionately about Wyoming. His words still hold true today. He
said that Wyoming was rich in agricultural possibilities. He explained
Wyoming was one of nature's great storehouses of minerals. Joseph Carey
also talked about grazing development, educational leadership,
widespread railway construction, the model Constitution, and the unique
opportunities for women.
Yet opponents to our statehood did not support women having the right
to vote. On the same day as Joseph Carey's impassioned speech,
Representative William Oates of Alabama argued against our admittance
to the Union. He said, ``Mr. Speaker, I do not hesitate to say that in
my judgment the franchise has been too liberally extended. Should we
ever reach universal suffrage this Government will become practically a
pure democracy and then the days of its existence are numbered.''
The U.S. House of Representatives narrowly passed Wyoming's statehood
bill with a vote of 139 to 127. The U.S. Senate passed the bill on June
27, 1890. Wyoming officially became the 44th State on July 10, 1890,
and became the first state to allow women the right to vote and hold
public office.
I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record Enrolled Joint
Resolution No. 1 of the Sixty-Fifth Legislature of the State of Wyoming
recognizing December 10, 2019, as Wyoming Women's Suffrage Day.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:
[[Page S1322]]
Enrolled Joint Resolution No. 1, Senate
SIXTY-FIFTH LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF WYOMING
2019 GENERAL SESSION
A Joint Resolution recognizing December 10, 2019 as Wyoming
Women's Suffrage Day.
1Whereas, Wyoming is often referred to as the ``Cowboy
State,'' its more apt sobriquet is the ``Equality State'';
and
Whereas, women, like all persons, have always inherently
held the right to vote and participate in their government;
and
Whereas, Wyoming was the first government to explicitly
acknowledge and affirm women's inherent right to vote and to
hold office; and
Whereas, this inherent right, at the founding of the United
States, was inhibited; and
Whereas, women, at the founding of the United States, were
also prevented from holding office; and
Whereas, women's suffrage--the basic enfranchisement of
women--began to burgeon in the United States in the 1840s and
continued to gain momentum over the next decades, despite the
oppressive atmosphere in which women were not allowed to
divorce their husbands or show their booted ankles without
risk of public scandal or worse; and
Whereas, during the 1850s, activism to support women's
suffrage gathered steam, but lost momentum when the Civil War
began; and
Whereas, in the fall of 1868, three (3) years after the
American Civil War had ended, Union Army General Ulysses S.
Grant was elected President, and chose John Campbell to serve
as Governor of the Wyoming Territory; and
Whereas, Joseph A. Carey, who was thereafter appointed to
serve as Attorney General of the Wyoming Territory, issued a
formal legal opinion that no one in Wyoming could be denied
the right to vote based on race; and
Whereas, the first Wyoming Territorial Legislature,
comprised entirely of men, required consistent and persistent
inveigling to warm to the notion of suffrage; and
Whereas, abolitionist and woman suffrage activist, Esther
Hobart Morris, was born in Tioga County, New York, on August
8, 1812, and later became a successful milliner and
businesswoman; and
Whereas, Esther Hobart Morris, widowed in 1843, moved to
Peru, Illinois, to settle the property in her late husband's
estate and experienced the legal hardships faced by women in
Illinois and New York; and
Whereas, Esther Hobart Morris married John Morris, a
prosperous merchant, and in 1869 moved to the gold rush camp
at South Pass City, a small valley situated along the banks
of Willow Creek on the southeastern end of the Wind River
Mountains in the Wyoming Territory just north of the Oregon
Trail; and
Whereas, William Bright, a saloonkeeper, also from the once
bustling frontier mining town South Pass City, was elected to
serve in the Territorial Legislature and was elected as
president of the Territorial Council; and
Whereas, the Territorial Legislature met in 1869 in
Cheyenne and passed bills and resolutions formally enabling
women to vote and hold property and formally assuring equal
pay for teachers; and
Whereas, William Bright introduced a bill to recognize the
right of Wyoming women to vote; and
Whereas, no records were kept of the debate between Wyoming
territorial lawmakers, although individuals likely asserted a
myriad of motivations and intentions in supporting women's
suffrage; and
Whereas, the Wyoming Territory population at the time
consisted of six adult men for every adult woman, some
lawmakers perchance hoped suffrage would entice more women to
the state; and
Whereas, some lawmakers may have believed that women's
suffrage was consistent with the goals articulated in post-
Civil War Amendment XV to the United States Constitution
guaranteeing the ``right of citizens of the United States to
vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or
by any state on account of race, color, or previous condition
of servitude''; and
Whereas, some lawmakers inherently knew that guaranteeing
the right of women to vote was, simply, the right thing to
do; and
Whereas, the Territorial Legislature advanced a suffrage
bill stating, ``That every woman of the age of twenty-one
years, residing in this territory, may, at every election to
be holden under the laws thereof, cast her vote. And her
rights to the elective franchise and to hold office shall be
the same under the election laws of the territory, as those
of electors'' and that ``This act shall take effect and be in
force from and after its passage''; and
Whereas, when invited to join the Union, demanding that
women's suffrage be revoked, the Wyoming Legislature said,
``We will remain out of the Union one hundred years rather
than come in without the women''; and
Whereas, in July 1890, Esther Hobart Morris presented the
new Wyoming state flag to Governor Francis E. Warren during
the statehood celebration, making Wyoming the 44th state to
enter the Union and the first with its women holding the
right to vote and serve in elected office; and
Whereas, the United States did not endorse women's suffrage
until 1920 with the ratification of the 19th Amendment to the
U.S. Constitution; and
Whereas, despite the passage of the 19th Amendment, women
of color continued to face barriers with exercising their
right to vote, as American Indian men and women were not
recognized as United States citizens permitted to vote until
the passage of the Indian Citizenship Act of 1924, and
ongoing racial discrimination required the passage and
implementation of the Voting Rights Act of 1965; and
Whereas, achieving voting rights for all women required
firm and continuing resolve to overcome reluctance, and even
fervent opposition, toward this rightful enfranchisement; and
Whereas, Wyoming, the first to recognize women's suffrage,
blazed a trail of other noteworthy milestones, such as Louisa
Swain, of Laramie, casting the first ballot by a woman voter
in 1870; and
Whereas, in 1870 the first jury to include women was in
Wyoming and was sworn in on March 7 in Laramie; and
Whereas, Esther Hobart Morris was appointed to serve as
justice of the peace in February 1870, making her the first
woman to serve as a judge in the United States; and
Whereas, Wyoming women become the first women to vote in a
presidential election in 1892; and
Whereas, in 1894 Wyoming elected Estelle Reel to serve as
the state superintendent of public instruction, making her
one of the first women in the United States elected to serve
in a statewide office; and
Whereas, the residents of the town of Jackson in 1920
elected a city council composed entirely of women - dubbed
the ``petticoat government'' by the press - making it the
first all-women government in the United States; and
Whereas, in 1924 Wyoming elected Nellie Tayloe Ross to
serve as governor of the great state of Wyoming, making her
the first woman to be sworn in as governor in these United
States; and
Whereas, all these milestones illuminate and strengthen
Wyoming's heritage as the ``Equality State''; and
Whereas, December 10, 2019 marks the 150th anniversary of
the date women's suffrage became law.
Now, therefore, be it resolved by the members of the
Legislature of the State of Wyoming:
Section 1. That the Wyoming legislature commemorates 2019
as a year to celebrate the one hundred fiftieth (150th)
anniversary of the passage of women's suffrage.
Section 2. That the Wyoming legislature is proud of its
heritage as the first state to recognize the right of women
to vote and hold office, hereby affirming its legacy as the
``Equality State.''
Section 3. That the Secretary of State of Wyoming transmit
a copy of this resolution to the National Women's Hall of
Fame in support of Esther Hobart Morris' induction into the
Women of the Hall.
Section 4. That the Wyoming legislature encourages its
citizens and invites its visitors to learn about the women
and men who made women's suffrage in Wyoming a reality,
thereby blazing a trail for other states, and eventually the
federal government, to recognize the inherent right of men
and women alike to elect their leaders and hold office.
____________________