This year, as we celebrate the 100th anniversary of the congressional adoption of the 19th Amendment to the United States Constitution, we should remember that here in our state the amendment did not create the right to vote for women, but rather restored that right after over a century. A little-known fact is that our 1776 state constitution, adopted on July 2, 1776, through its provision granting the franchise to “inhabitants,” was interpreted to authorize both women and African Americans to vote. An early statute implemented the constitutional provision, and these two groups, excluded from the franchise in most states and in the federal constitution, participated in elections until, after some controversial contests, the statute was repealed in 1807. There was no constitutional challenge at that time. The 1844 Constitution then explicitly excluded women and African Americans from voting, and proposed amendments to restore women’s suffrage were defeated at the polls in 1897 and 1915. In 1912 Mary Philbrook, the first woman lawyer in New Jersey, challenged the 1844 constitutional exclusion on the ground that the 1776 provision allowing inhabitants to vote was violated when women were not permitted to vote (the implementing statute had been repealed) on electing delegates or ratification of the 1844 Constitution. Her case was unsuccessful (Carpenter v. Cornish).
The 1844 provision was finally invalidated by the 19th Amendment, at least with respect to women. This interesting chapter in our state constitutional history was, most recently, explored in an article by Jan Ellen Lewis in the 2011 Rutgers Law Review.
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