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The Female Suffrage Bill
Female Suffrage, Wyoming Territory, Dec. 10, 1869. BlackPast
Legislator and South Pass City saloonkeeper William Bright. Wyoming Tales and Trails. Elected on September 2, 1869. WyoHistory, Wyoming Tales and Trails
The Bill:
The Female Suffrage Bill changed a political frontier when Wyoming became the first territory and state to give women full suffrage. It granted women the right to vote as men could, to run for and hold public office, own and inherit property, and have guardianship of minor children.
Processing of Bill:
On October 12, 1869, Female Suffrage was introduced by the President of the council (Senate), William Bright, at the first Legislative Assembly held for the Territorial Legislative Assembly at the Thomas McLeland Building in Cheyenne, Wyoming.
When it was time to vote on the bill, the Senate ultimately passed Female Suffrage with six ayes, two nays, and one absent. The House passed the bill with six ayes, four nays, and one absent. The bill quickly went through the governor, John A. Campbell's office, and Female Suffrage became law on December 10, 1869.
This is a drawing made of the Thomas McLeland Building. Library Of Congress
John A. Campbell. October 8, 1835 - July 4, 1880. He was appointed governor on April 15, 1869, by Ulysses S. Grant. Archives
Reasons for the Female Suffrage Bill Passing:
There are a few reasons why Wyoming gave women full suffrage.
1. To increase the population. Before the population started decreasing, the town was famously a gold mine. When the amount of gold started depleting, lawmakers wanted good publicity so more settlers would move to Wyoming. Before the bill passed, only 9,118 people were living people living in the Wyoming Territory, which is about one adult woman for every six men in the population.
2. The legislatures on the council hoped the women who would move there would vote Democratically. Nearly all the men on the council were Democratic, so they hoped women in Wyoming would vote democratically because the Democrats on the council voted for women's rights.
3. Some believed it was a joke or that it had little chance of passing. Surprisingly many of the legislators thought this because when William Bright introduced the bill, he did after a joke was said.
4. Some also wanted to make the Republican governor look bad since, typically, in the 1860s, Democrats believed in woman's rights, and Republicans believed in black rights. Though the Republican governor happily signed it.
5. Some legislators wanted to give women the right to vote simply because it was the "right thing to do."
6. Black men had recently got the right to vote, many legislatures were concerned and thought they needed to weaken the black male vote.
Quote(s):
"The legislators of the youngest American territory, who convened the year iron rails linked the nation coast, in fifty-one days created a functioning democracy. Wyoming rebels began in merriment, added woman to the roll call of American citizens, and ended in merriment at a ball." - Sidney Howell Fleming, Women's Voice's from the Western Frontier
Wyoming initially refused statehood because the United States wanted to get rid of the bill. So the men of the Wyoming Legislative Assembly telegraphed Washington:
"We will remain out of the union a hundred years rather than go in without woman suffrage."
“Once, during the session, amid the greatest hilarity, and after the presentation of various funny amendments and in the full expectation of a gubernatorial veto, an act was passed Enfranchising the Women of Wyoming. The bill, however, was approved, became a law, and the youngest territory placed in the van of progress . . . How strange that a movement destined to purify the muddy pool of politics . . . should have originated in a joke . . . All honor to them, say we, to Wyoming’s first legislature!” -Secretary of the Territory in 1869 Edward M. Lee,