Petition of Eliza Jane Christie for the Removal of her Political Disabilities

In this petition to Congress, Eliza Jane Christie requests a relief from her political disabilities. This petition was part of a petition drive organized by the National Woman Suffrage Association (NWSA) calling for a constitutional amendment that would give women the right to vote. The petition closely follows a template provided by NWSA (an example of this type is the Petition of Dr. Clemence Lozier). The organization encouraged women to personalize their messages to Congress by including their personal reasons for desiring the the right to vote. In her petition, Eliza Jane Christie expresses some of her political beliefs, including that there should be an educational qualification to the right of suffrage. This serves as a reminder that while many women believed they should have the right to vote, they did not necessarily believe in universal suffrage.

This petition was referred to to the Committee on the Judiciary in the House of Representatives on February 6, 1878. On January 10, 1878 Senator Aaron Sargent first introduced the joint resolution for an amendment to the Constitution that would ultimately extend the right to vote to women as the 19th Amendment, 42 years later. Petitions like this one from Eliza Jane Christie show how women exercised their rights to bring about change in the decades-long fight for the right to vote.

Transcript

To the Senate and House of Representatives of The United
States in Congress assembled.

Mrs. Eliza Jane Christie, a citizen of the United States and a resident of the State of Michigan County of Monroe Township of London, hereby respectfully petition your honorable body for the removal of her political disabilities and that she may be declared invested with full power to exercise her right of self government at the ballot-box and all state constitutions or statute laws to the contrary notwithstanding. I want no sectarian idea of God in the Constitution, Taxation without representation is tyranny, am opposed to licensing houses of ill-fame. I want no license for the sale of intoxicating liquors as a beverage; Church property should be taxed as other property; I think education should be compulsory and after eighteen hundred eighty five, there should educational qualification to the right of suffrage, these are a few of the reason why I wish to have the right of suffrage.

Petition of
Eliza Jane Christie of
London, Monroe
Co. Mich. for the
removal of political
disabilities

Com.
Judiciary
Feby 6 1878
Referred to the Committee on the
Judiciary.

[illegible] Willits
[illegible]