7.  Treatment of question demands intelligence.

The handicaps of a popular vote upon a question of human liberty which must be described in technical language will be clear to all who think.  It is probable that at least a fourth of the voters in West Virginia, one of the recent suffrage campaign states, could not define the following words intelligently:  constitution, amendment, franchise, suffrage, majority, plurality.  It is probable they would succeed even less well at an attempt to give an account of the Declaration of Independence, the Revolution, Taxation without Representation, the will of the majority, popular government.  Such men might make a fairly intelligent choice of men for local offices because their minds are trained to deal with persons and concrete things.  They could decide between Mr. Wilson and Mr. Hughes with some discrimination, but would have slight if any knowledge of the platforms upon which either stood.  A referendum in many of our states, means to defer woman suffrage until the most ignorant, most narrow-minded, most un-American, are ready for it.  The removal of the question to the higher court of the Congress and the Legislatures of the several states means that it will be established when the intelligent, Americanized, progressive people of the country are ready for it.

CHAPTER II.

STATE CONSTITUTIONAL OBSTRUCTIONS[A]

[Footnote A:  Table of difficulties in each state is to be found in the Appendix.]

MARY SUMNER BOYD

At its last session the Arkansas Legislature passed a Woman Suffrage bill by a generous majority; in Kentucky a bill passed both houses and one house in five other states.  One of these was Arkansas where a constitutional provision that only three amendments can be submitted to the people at once rendered of no avail the passage of the Legislature.  In the five other states the enormous Constitutional majorities required in a legislative vote on amendments defeated the measure.

This is the story of a typical year and these are two of the difficulties which beset the gaining of suffrage “state by state.”  Year after year labor is thrown away and money wasted because actual minorities in legislatures can defeat constitutional amendments; or because once past the legislature, constitutional technicalities can keep them away from the polls; or because, safely past these hazards, a minority vote of the people can defeat a bill that has successfully reached the polls.

Theoretically an amendment to a state constitution must have the approval of the Legislature, ratified by the approval of the people.  This ratification is what differentiates it from a statutory law.  This is the actual requirement, however, in but two of the male suffrage states, South Dakota and Missouri.  In all the rest, except Delaware and New Hampshire, which have special methods of amending, much more than simple passage and ratification is required.