Analyzing Opinions For and Against Women’s Suffrage in Utah, 1870-1896
Lesson Overview
In this lesson, students will analyze primary source excerpts from various viewpoints. Students will use these sources to interpret why most Utah women’s voting rights were granted, rescinded, and returned between 1870 and the achievement of statehood in 1896. Proceeding this document analysis, students will participate in a voting simulation activity to consider the effects of franchisement, disfranchisement, and re-enfranchisement, and the role suffrage played in Utah’s quest for statehood.
Recommended Instructional Time: 1-2 Class Periods
Historical Background for Educators
In the nineteenth century, many leaders and members of the Utah-based Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints practiced polygamy, which was a religious belief of the church. Though there were no federal laws against polygamy when the Latter-day Saints began practicing this marital system in the 1840s, polygamy was strongly opposed by the American mainstream, which valued monogamous marriage. Polygamy was so unpopular that in the mid-1850s, the newly emerged Republican Party adopted a platform of ending the “twin relics of barbarism”–slavery and polygamy.
“[Utah women] have held the ballot sacred and have always been on hand to exercise the right and cast their votes for the men of their choice.” –Emmeline B. Wells
As anti-polygamy laws and sentiment strengthened in the United States, Latter-day Saints in Utah wanted to show that Mormon women were not duped, oppressed, or “enslaved” by polygamy as they were typically portrayed. Many Mormon women wanted to demonstrate that they, too, supported polygamy as a religious belief. On February 12, 1870, Utah’s territorial legislature granted voting rights to “every woman of the age of twenty-one years who has resided in this Territory six months next preceding any general or special election, born or naturalized in the United States, or who is the wife, widow or the daughter of a native-born or naturalized citizen of the United States.” Just as the Mormons believed would happen, Latter-day Saint women in Utah did not vote for representatives opposed to polygamy, but rather those who supported it.
When anti-polygamists like Angie Newman saw Mormon women use their new political power to support polygamy, they lobbied for federal legislation to force an end to the practice–legislation that included rescinding the voting rights of Mormon men and all Utah women. The 1887 Edmunds-Tucker Act achieved this end. Mormon women suffragists, led by Emmeline B. Wells, fought to retain their voting rights and, after they lost them, lobbied to win them back.
In 1890, the LDS Church officially disavowed the practice of polygamy. Though Utah Territory had unsuccessfully applied for statehood several times over the previous four decades, the church’s disavowal of polygamy increased Utah’s chances of being admitted to the Union as a state. In 1894, Congress passed the Enabling Act, which essentially invited Utah to apply again for statehood. At Utah’s 1895 Constitutional Convention, delegates (who legally could only be male) debated whether to include a clause in the state constitution that would grant Utah women the right to vote and hold public office.
“To pursue this issue and adopt woman’s suffrage in the Constitution will endanger its life.” –B. H. Roberts
Delegate B. H. Roberts was one of the few who argued against the suffrage clause. But most of the delegates, like Franklin S. Richards and Orson F. Whitney, favored women’s suffrage. Backed by strong lobbying from female suffragists, the pro-suffrage delegates carried the day, and the clause for women’s suffrage was included in the proposed state constitution. Utah’s all-male electorate voted overwhelmingly to approve the constitution in November 1895, Congress ratified it, and President Grover Cleveland signed it on January 4, 1896. Utahns rejoiced not only that they had become a state, but also that Utah women were now able to vote again, as well as hold public office.
The U.S. Constitution gives each state control over its voting qualifications and election systems.
It is important to note that not all women residing in Utah were granted the vote in 1870 or with statehood in 1896 or with the ratification of the 19th Amendment in 1920. Utah women who were granted voting rights in 1870 only included “every woman of the age of twenty-one years who has resided in this Territory six months next preceding any general or special election, born or naturalized in the United States, or who is the wife, widow or the daughter of a native-born or naturalized citizen of the United States.” And in 1895, the Utah State Constitution stated: “The rights of citizens of the State of Utah to vote and hold office shall not be denied on account of sex.” Thus, only those who were considered citizens were allowed to vote. So, for example, since Native Americans were not considered U.S. citizens during this time period, they were excluded from women’s voting rights in Utah in 1870 and 1896, and nationally in 1920. American Indians gained voting rights when Congress granted them U.S. citizenship through the Indian Citizenship Act in 1924. Many states, including Utah, nonetheless made laws and policies which prohibited American Indians from voting, claiming that American Indians living on reservations were residents of their own nations and thus non-residents of the states. On February 14, 1957, the Utah state legislature repealed its legislation that had prevented American Indians living on reservations from voting, becoming one of the last states to do so.
Article 4, Section 1 from the Utah State Constitution, Elections and Right of Suffrage.
The United States system of government, as a representative democracy, relies on citizens to vote and elect representatives to act on their behalf. Founding father James Madison said, “The definition of the right of suffrage is very justly regarded as a fundamental article of republican government.” The U.S. Constitution does not explicitly guarantee a right to vote, but in the absence of a specific enumerated federal law, the Constitution gives each state control over its voting qualifications and election systems. This principle of federalism explains why some states were able to adopt women’s suffrage sooner than others. It also explains why certain constitutional amendments have been necessary to expand voting rights and protections at a national level. While states still maintain control over voting requirements, constitutional amendments have been ratified over time to prohibit discriminating against voters based on factors such as race (15th Amendment); sex (19th Amendment); failure to pay a poll tax (24th Amendment); and age, for those 18 years or older (26th Amendment). These national amendments have extended voting rights to large groups of citizens who were historically denied suffrage.
Vocabulary
Materials Needed
Image of Angie Newman & Emmeline Wells 
Image of B. H. Roberts & Franklin S. Richards 
Image of B. H. Roberts & Orson F. Whitney Tell us your experience
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