Page:History of Woman Suffrage Volume 4.djvu/1077

 William M. Stewart of Nevada and Algernon S. Paddock of Nebraska defended the right of the Territory to decide this question for itself.

George Gray of Delaware declared his belief that "woman suffrage is inimical to the best interests of society." John C. Spooner of Wisconsin disapproved the enfranchisement of women, but believed Wyoming had a right to place it in its constitution.

Orville H. Platt of Connecticut in urging the acceptance of the report said:

I never have been an advocate of woman suffrage. I never believed, as some senators do, that it was wise. But with all that, I would not keep a Territory out of the Union as a State because its constitution did allow women to vote, nor would I force upon a Territory any restriction or qualification as to what its vote should be in that respect. When Washington Territory came here and asked for admission and the bill was passed, it had had woman suffrage, and I was appealed to by a great many citizens all over the United States to keep it out of the Union, so far as my action could do so, until it restored the right of women to vote which had been taken away under a decision of its own courts — taken away, as I thought, unjustly; for I did not consider that decision good law. The senator from Massachusetts, Mr. Hoar, interrogated me when I was advocating the admission of Washington as to why we did not incorporate into that enabling act some language that should undo the wrong which had been done by the Supreme Court of the Territory and restore to women the right of voting. I said then, as I say now, that I think this is a matter which belongs to the Territory; and I am surprised that gentlemen who are so devoted to home rule as a sacred right which should never be interfered with in this republic, should not be willing to allow to a Territory, when it asks for admission, the right to determine whether women should or should not be permitted to vote by the constitution of the proposed State. Why should we, the Congress of the United States, stand here and say to that Territory, where women have enjoyed the right of voting for twenty years, and nobody arises to gainsay it or to intimate that they have not exercised the right wisely, why should we stand here and say: "Keep out of the Union; we will let no community, no Territory, in here which does not deprive its women of the right they have enjoyed while in a Territorial condition"?

After every possible device to strike out the obnoxious clause had been exhausted, the bill to admit Wyoming as a State was passed on June 27, 1890, by 29 ayes, 18 noes, 37 absent. Al-