Page:History of Woman Suffrage Volume 3.djvu/319

Rh treated the woman suffrage question with consideration. In its annual convention it has passed resolutions endorsing woman's claims to political equality, and has set the example to other parties of admitting women as delegates. At the State convention in 1885 the following resolution was adopted by a good majority:

Resolved, That women having interests to be promoted and rights to be protected, and having ability for the discharge of political duties, should have the right to vote and to be voted for, as is accorded to man.

In the early history of Massachusetts, when the new colony was governed by laws set down in the Province charter (1691, third year of William and Mary) women were not excluded from voting. The clause in the charter relating to this matter says:

The great and general court shall consist of the governor and council (or assistants for the time being) and of such freeholders as shall be from time to time elected or deputed by the major part of the freeholders and other inhabitants of the respective towns or places, who shall be present at such elections.

In the original constitution (1780) women were excluded from voting except for certain State officers. In the constitutional convention of 1820, the word "male" was first put into the constitution of the State, in an amendment to define the qualifications of voters. In this convention, a motion was made at three different times, during the passage of the act, to strike out the intruding word, but the motion was voted down. Long before the second attempt was made to revise the constitution of the State, large numbers of women began to demand suffrage. Woman's sphere of operations and enterprise had become so widened, that they felt they had not only the right, but also an increasing fitness for civil life and government, of which the ballot is but the sign and the symbol. In the constitutional convention of 1853, twelve petitions were presented, from over 2,000 adult persons, asking for the recognition of woman's right to the ballot, in the proposed amendments to the constitution of the State. The committee reported leave to withdraw, giving as their reason that the "consent of the governed" was shown by the small number of petitioners. Hearings before this committee were granted. The chairman of this committee, in presenting the report, moved that all debate on the subject should cease in thirty minutes, and on motion of