Women's Suffrage
By Andy Alt / Mental Dimensions
08/30/2006

I received a 2006 calendar from my mother a while back (probably around December of 2005), and under August 26th it shows "Woman Suffrage, 1920." Because of My Personal Voyage of Discovery, I wasn't available then to note it in my blog. Also, my Internet wasn't working on the day I departed. I was going to email Ed Schultz and suggest he mention it on the show last Friday. Now this unnecessary first paragraph is over, and I'll add some links. I don't really have any comments about Women's suffrage, other than I think it's a good thing that women can vote.

My grandmother recommended a book to me: John Adams, by David McCullough. On page 104, Abigail (John's wife) is quoted as writing in a letter to John:

"--and by the way in the new code of laws which I suppose it will be necessary for you to make, I desire you would remember the ladies, and be more favorable to them than your ancestors. Do not put such unlimited power into the hands of husbands."

The author inserts this:

Borrowing a line from a poem by Daniel Defoe that she knew he would recognize (for he had used it, too), she wrote, "Remember, all men would be tyrants if they could.

If particular care and attention is not paid to the ladies we are determined to foment a rebellion, and will not hold ourselves bound by any laws in which we have no voice or representation..."

And then there's more, but that's enough copyright infringing and plagiarizing for now (I already feel guilty enough about using words and letters from the dictionary). That letter was written just prior to Independence circa 1776. As for the calendar I mentioned in the first paragraph, it's an American calendar, but the links I listed above have information about international suffrage.