[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.

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