CHAPTER LII.. Wyoming.

WYOMING.

The Dawn of the New Day, December, 1869--The Goal Reached in England and America--Territory Organized, May, 1869--Legislative Action--Bill for Woman Suffrage--William H. Bright--Gov. Campbell Signs the Bill--Appoints Esther Morris, Justice of the Peace, March, 1870--Women on the Jury, Chief-Justice Howe, Presiding--J. W. Kingman, Associate-Justice, Addresses the Jury--Women Promptly take their Places--Sunday Laws Enforced--Comments of the Press--Judge Howe's Letter--Laramie Sentinel--J. H. Heyford--Women Voting, 1870--Grandma Swain the First to Cast her Ballot--Effort to Repeal the Law, 1871--Gov. Campbell's Veto--Mr. Corlett--Rapid Growth of Public Opinion in Favor of Woman Suffrage.

After recording such a long succession of disappointments and humiliations for women in all the States in their worthy endeavors for higher education, for profitable employment in the trades and professions and for equal social, civil and political rights, it is with renewed self-respect and a stronger hope of better days to come that we turn to the magnificent territory of Wyoming, where the foundations of the first true republic were laid deep and strong in equal rights to all, and where for the first time in the history of the race woman has been recognized as a sovereign in her own right--an independent, responsible being--endowed with the capacity for self-government. This great event in the history of human progress transpired in 1869.

Neither the point nor the period for this experiment could have been more fitly chosen. Midway across this vast western continent, on the highest plane of land, rising from three to eight thousand feet above the level of the sea, where gigantic mountain-peaks shooting still higher seem to touch the clouds, while at their feet flow the great rivers that traverse the State in all directions, emptying themselves after weary wanderings into the Pacific ocean at last; such was the grand point where woman was first crowned with the rights of citizenship. And the period was equally marked. To reach the goal of self-government the women of England and America seemed to be vieing with each other in the race, now one holding the advance position, now the other. And in many respects their struggles and failures were similar. When seeking the advantages of collegiate education, the women of England were compelled to go to France, Austria and Switzerland for the opportunities they could not enjoy in their own country. The women of our Eastern States followed their example, or went to Western institutions for such privileges, granted by Oberlin and Antioch in Ohio, Ann Arbor in Michigan, Washington University in Missouri, and refused in all the colleges of the East. For long years, alike they endured ridicule and bitter persecution to secure a foothold in their universities at home.

Our battles in Parliament and in the Congress of the United States were simultaneous. While nine senators, staunch and true, voted in favor of woman suffrage in 1866, and women were rolling up their petitions for a constitutional amendment in '68 and '69, with Samuel C. Pomeroy in the Senate and George W. Julian in the House, the women of England, keeping step and time, found their champions in the House of Commons in John Stuart Mill and Jacob Bright in 1867-69, and no sooner were their mammoth petitions presented in parliament than ours were rolled into the halls of congress. At last we reached the goal, the women of England in 1869 and those of Wyoming in 1870. But what the former gained in time the latter far surpassed in privilege. While to the English woman only a limited suffrage was accorded, in the vast territory of Wyoming, larger than all Great Britain, all the rights of citizenship were fully and freely conferred by one act of the legislature--the right to vote at all elections on all questions and to hold any office in the gift of the people.

The successive steps by which this was accomplished are given us by Hon. J. W. Kingman, associate-justice in the territory for several years:

It is now sixteen years since the act was passed giving women the right to vote at all elections in this territory, including all the rights of an elector, with the right to hold office. The language of the statute is broad, and beyond the reach of evasion. It is as follows:

That every woman of the age of twenty-one years, residing in the territory, may, at every election to be holden under the laws thereof, cast her vote; and her rights to the elective franchise, and to hold office, shall be the same, under the election laws of the territory, as those of the electors.

There was no half-way work about it, no quibbling, no grudgingly parting with political power, no fear of consequences, but a manly acknowledgment of equal rights and equal privileges, among all the citizens of the new territory. Nor was this the only act of that first legislature on the subject of equal rights. They passed the following:

AN ACT to protect married women in their separate property, and the enjoyment of their labor.