Existing comment:
"Do not destroy self-government for the state"
A minority of white Southern suffragists -- women who supported white supremacy as fervently as their own political rights -- insisted on states' rights to determine eligibility for voting and opposed a Federal woman suffrage amendment. This 1919 petition from prominent Southern suffragists Kate Gordon and Laura Clay makes a direct appeal to Congress's "race pride," arguing that white women should obtain the vote by state action rather than a constitutional amendment. |