The Fight for Rights in New Jersey
While most of the country denied women the right to vote, there was one state where women were temporarily granted this right: New Jersey. In New Jersey, women did have the right to vote beginning in 1777. However, this right was stripped away in 1807. While it is still unknown why New Jersey decided to allow women the right to vote, it was clear that it was intentional as they later inserted the words “he or she” into their election law. Orginally, the election law was slightly unclear, makng women confused on if they were allowed to vote or not. Election laws in other states specifically stated the words "male," exlcuding women voting. New Jersey, however, originally used gender inclusive language saying "all inhabitants" who fit the certain property and wealth requirements could vote.1 Given that it didn't specifically state "male" like other states, women slowly began voting more. But why, after giving women the right to vote for 30 years, did they revoke it? Although various reasons were put forth to justify stripping their right away, they all traced back to the traditional roles and prevailing beliefs men held about women's roles in society.
The stripping of women's rights reflects growing concerns about their increasing participation in politics and the threat it posed to traditional social norms. It was believed that women were “a fundamental threat to the political order” and “unlike [women’s] service in the Revolutionary War, [their influence] was no longer for the good of the nation.”2 This idea stemmed from the perception that women were easily manipulated by men and, therefore, unfit to vote. Oftentimes, men painted women out to be mindless pawns of other male voters, such as their husbands or their fathers. Men became scared of the influence women now had in the state and, as women became increasingly politicized, began to see them as not only a threat to political order, but a threat to the gender status quo.3
William Griffith, a prominent tax lawyer in New Jersey during this time period, was one of many who argued this belief. He deemed that “it is perfectly disgusting to witness the manner in which women are polled at elections” and that “it is evident, that women, generally, are neither, by nature, nor habit, nor education, nor by their necessary condition in society, fitted to perform this duty with credit to themselves, or advantage to the public.”4 By stating that women are not 'by nature' fit to perform this duty, he makes it clear that his belief was rooted in the long-standing tradition that women are meant to stay at home and do the chores rather than participating in governmental policy. It was a widely accepted notion that women’s primary function was within the household, and any attempt to step outside this role, such as voting, was seen as unnatural and disruptive to the established social order.
Eventually, the arguments made by men became too powerful, and women’s right to vote was stripped away just as it had been in the rest of the country. By linking women to voter fraud, corruption, and claims of being "unnatural," it became an easy decision for New Jersey politicians to revoke this short-lived right—especially when the rest of the country had already denied women the vote.5 Although women were extremely useful in the American Revolution, their votes were no longer useful after politicians “had spent ten years using women's suffrage as a political weapon.”6 In the end, the decision to take away women’s voting rights in New Jersey was driven by gender norms created by society, tradition, and custom, which kept men in control of politics for the foreseeable future.
1New Jersey. Legislature. “1776 New Jersey Constitution.” New Jersey State Library, 1 Jan. 1776, dspace.njstatelib.org/items/ae1db3b7-dde2-4690-b497-fefe12e1daee.
2Harden, Brandon T. “In 1807, N.J. Women and Free People of Color Lost the Right to Vote. The Museum of the American Revolution Explores Why.” Philadelphia Inquirer, The (PA), 8 Oct. 2020.
3“Why Did Women Lose the Vote?: The Backlash.” When Women Lost the Vote: A Revolutionary Story, Museum of the American Revolution, www.amrevmuseum.org/virtualexhibits/when-women-lost-the-vote-a-revolutionary-story/pages/how-did-women-lose-the-vote-the-backlash.
4William Griffith, Eumenes: Being a Collection of Papers written for the Purpose of Exhibiting Some of the More Prominent Errors and Omissions of the Constitution of New-Jersey (Trenton, N.J.: G. Kraft, 1799), 33.
5Curry-Ledbetter, Campbell. "WOMEN'S SUFFRAGE IN NEW JERSEY 1776-1807: A POLITICAL WEAPON." Georgetown Journal of Gender and the Law 21, no. 3 (2020): 705+. Gale General OneFile (accessed November 27, 2024). https://link-gale-com.proxy2.cl.msu.edu/apps/doc/A634872164/ITOF?u=msu_main&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=09a92783.
6Ibid.