The Constitutional Convention of 1890 provided that no Legislature should repeal or impair the above property rights of married women.
This convention was called primarily to change the constitution with reference to the elimination of the negro vote. It was composed of representative men thoroughly alive to what they construed as the best interests of the State. As one way of circumventing the threatened supremacy of this vote, the enfranchisement of women was variously considered. The first amendment for this purpose was submitted by Judge John W. Fewell:
Resolved, That it is a condition necessary to the solution of the franchise problem, that the right to vote shall be secured by proper constitutional enactment to every woman who shall have resided in this State six months, and who shall be 21 years of age or upward, and who shall own, or whose husband, if she have a husband, shall own real estate situate in this State of the clear value of $300 over and above all incumbrances.
The vote of any woman voting in any election shall be cast by some male elector, who shall be thereunto authorized in writing by such woman so entitled to vote; such constitutional amendment not to be so framed as to grant to women the right to hold office.
This was referred to the Committee on Franchise, composed of thirty-five members, but was defeated. The idea was that a great many white women owned property, while very few negro women did, hence the woman vote would furnish a reserve fund which could be called out in an emergency, the author of the measure himself being "not an advocate of female suffrage generally," according to his remarks before the convention. Many, perhaps a majority, at one time favored the scheme, it was said, though comparatively few of the committee recognized the justice of woman's enfranchisement per se.
J. W. Odom offered, among other measures from the "California Alliance" of DeSoto County, a proposition that the right of suffrage be conferred upon women on "certain conditions" not specified. John P. Robinson and D. J. Johnson also submitted sections providing for "female suffrage under certain conditions." Jordan L. Morris offered the following:
The Legislature shall have power to confer the elective franchise on all women who are citizens of the State and of the United States, 21 years of age and upwards, who own, in their own right, over and above all incumbrances, property listed for taxation of the value of $500 or upwards, or who, being widows, own jointly with their own or their husband's children, property of said value listed for taxation; or who are capable of teaching a first-grade public school in this State, as prescribed by law, and who never have been convicted, and shall not thereafter be convicted of any crime or misdemeanor and not pardoned therefor, to such extent and under such restrictions and limitations as it may deem proper to prescribe.
All of these noble efforts resulted in no action whatever to enfranchise women.
Suffrage: Since 1880 a woman as a freeholder, or leaseholder, may vote at a county election, or sign a petition for such an election to be held, to decide as to the adoption or non-adoption of a law permitting stock to run at large. She may also, if a widow and, as such, the head of the family, manifest by ballot her consent or dissent to leasing certain portions of land in the township, known as the "sixteenth sections," which are set apart for school purposes. As a patron of a school, which presupposes her widowhood, she may vote at an election of school trustees, other than in a "separate school district," which practically limits this privilege to women in the country.[349]
As a taxpayer a woman can petition against the issuance of bonds by the municipality in which she resides (except where the proposed issuance is governed and regulated by a charter adopted previous to the code of 1892), but if a special election is ordered she can not vote for or against issuing the bonds.
The Legislature in dealing with the liquor traffic may make the grant of license depend upon a petition therefor signed by men and women, or by women only, or upon any other condition that it may prescribe; and it seems to be equally true that the Legislature may grant to women the right to vote at elections held to determine whether or not local option laws shall be put in force, but it never has done so.