Convention, 1853, in New York,
Rev. John Pierpont said: "I can go back forty years; and forty years
ago, when most of my present audience were not in, but behind, their
cradles, passing a stranger, through the neighboring State of New
Jersey, and stopping for dinner at an inn, where the coach stopped, I
saw at the bar where I went to pay, a list of the voters of the town
stuck up. My eye ran over it, and I read to my astonishment the names
of several women. 'What!' I said, 'do women vote here?' 'Certainly,'
was the answer, 'when they have real estate.' Then the question arose
in my mind, why should not women vote: Laws are made regulating the
tenure of real estate, and the essence of all republicanism is, that
they who feel the pressure of the law should have a voice in its
enactment."

DEFECTS IN THE CONSTITUTION OF NEW JERSEY.

In a very singular pamphlet published in Trenton, 1779, called
"Eumenes: A collection of papers on the Errors and Omissions of the
Constitution of New Jersey," the writer is very severe upon the fact
that women were allowed to exercise the same right as the sterner sex;
observing that "Nothing can be a greater mockery of this inalienable
right, than to suffer it to be exercised by persons who do not pretend
any judgment on the subject."[81]

Extract from "Eumenes," page 31, No. 8: "Defects of the Constitution
respecting the Qualification of Electors and Elected":

It will not be denied that a Constitution ought to point out what
persons may elect and who may be elected; and that it should as
distinctly prescribe their several qualifications, and render
those qualifications conformable to justice and the public
welfare. Indeed, on the proper adjustment of the elective
franchise depends, in a great measure, the liberty of the citizen
and the safety of the Government. Upon examination it will be
found that the Constitution requires amendment upon this head in
several particulars.

It has ever been a matter of dispute upon the Constitution,
whether females, as well as males, are entitled to elect officers
of Government. If we were to be guided by the letter of the
charter, it would seem to place them on the same footing in this
particular; and yet, recurring to _political right_ and the
nature of things, a very forcible construction has been raised
against the admission of _women_ to participate in the public