Petition from the Missouri Woman Suffrage Association Against the Edmunds-Tucker Bill

In 1870, Utah’s majority Mormon territorial legislature adopted woman suffrage. Strongly opposed to the Mormon practice of polygamy, Congress passed the Edmunds–Tucker Act that outlawed the practice and disfranchised Utah women. This was the only time that Congress took the vote from women – it argued women in plural marriages couldn’t vote independently. 

Women in Missouri sent this document to Congress in opposition to the Edmunds–Tucker Act, which passed in 1886 and became law in 1887. Utah won statehood in 1895 and once again fully enfranchised women.