and that this right be incorporated as a part of the
fundamental law of the State....

The woman suffrage clause was retained as a part of the constitution,
which was adopted by more than a three-fourths majority of the popular
vote.

A bill to provide for the admission of Wyoming as a State was
introduced into the House of Representatives on Dec. 18, 1889, and
later was favorably reported from the Committee on Territories by
Charles S. Baker of New York. A minority report was presented by
William M. Springer of Illinois, consisting of twenty-three pages, two
devoted to various other reasons for non-admission and twenty-one to
objections because of the woman suffrage article.

As it was supposed that the new State would be Republican, a bitter
fight was waged by the Democrats, using the provision for woman
suffrage as a club. The bill was grandly championed by Joseph M.
Carey, delegate from the Territory (afterward United States senator)
who defended the suffrage clause with the same courage and ability as
all the others in the constitution.[474]

The principal speech in opposition was by Joseph E. Washington of
Tennessee, who said in part:

My chief objection to the admission of Wyoming is the suffrage
article in the constitution. I am unalterably opposed to female
suffrage in any form. It can only result in the end in unsexing
and degrading the womanhood of America. It is emphatically a
reform against nature.... I have no doubt that in Wyoming to-day
women vote in as many [different] precincts as they can reach on
horseback or on foot after changing their frocks and bustles....
Tennessee has not yet adopted any of these new-fangled ideas, not
that we are lacking in respect for true and exalted
womanhood.[475]

William C. Oates of Alabama also delivered a long speech in
opposition, of which the following is a specimen paragraph:

I like a woman who is a woman and appreciates the sphere to which
God and the Bible have assigned her. I do not like a man-woman.
She may be intelligent and full of learning, but when she assumes
the performance of the duties and functions assigned by nature to
man, she becomes rough and tough and can no longer be the object
of affection.

He concluded his argument by saying that if ever universal suffrage
should prevail the Government would break to pieces of its own weight.

The enfranchisement o