In 1844 a convention framed a new constitution in which the suffrage was restricted to "white males," and only men were allowed to vote on its adoption. Women were still electors according to the existing constitution, and yet they were not permitted to vote for delegates to this convention nor for the ratification of the new constitution. No Supreme Court could have rendered any other decision than that this was illegally adopted.
For exactly eighty years women were deprived of any franchise. During the last twenty of this period they made repeated efforts to vote and presented numerous petitions to the Legislature to have their ancient right restored. In 1887 this body enacted that women might vote at school meetings (i. e. in villages and country districts) for trustees, bonds, appropriations, etc.
In 1893 a law was enacted giving the right to vote for Road Commissioner to "all freeholders." An election was very soon contested at Englewood, and in June, 1894, the Supreme Court decided that the act was illegal because "it is not competent for the Legislature to enlarge or diminish the class of voters comprehended within the constitutional definition." [The court had forgotten about that Legislature of 1807.]
This gave the opportunity for those who were opposed to women's exercising the School Suffrage. At a special election for school trustees held in Vineland, July 27, 1894, the women were forcibly prevented from depositing their ballots. The State Superintendent of Public Instruction was appealed to and he directed the county superintendent to appoint a board of trustees, as the election from which the women were excluded was illegal. This was done on the advice of the Attorney-General, who held that the constitution by empowering the Legislature to "provide for the maintenance and support of a system of free public schools," gave it the power to confer on women the right to vote at school meetings for school officers.
Without following the details it is only necessary to relate that the Supreme Court declared that "the State constitution says, 'Every male citizen, etc., shall be entitled to vote for all officers that are now or may be hereafter elective by the people' (!) and school trustees are elective officers within this provision, therefore the Act allowing women to vote for them is unconstitutional."
Women had been voting for these officers seven years under this Act, and always for the benefit of the schools, according to the almost universal testimony of educational authorities. It now became necessary, in order to continue this privilege, to obtain an amendment to the constitution. The story of the three years' effort made by the State Suffrage Association for this purpose is related earlier in the chapter. Since this had to be made they begged that the amendment might include School Suffrage for the women in towns and cities also, but this was refused. And yet even a proposition to restore School Suffrage to those of villages and rural districts, when submitted to the voters, was defeated at the election on Sept. 28, 1897, by 65,029 yeas, 75,170 nays, over 10,000 majority.
While the Supreme Court decision took away the vote for trustees it did not interfere with the right of women in villages and country districts to vote on questions of bonds and appropriations for the building of schoolhouses and other school purposes, and that is the amount of suffrage now possessed by women in New Jersey. When the school laws were revised in 1900 this fragment was carefully guarded and provision made for furnishing two boxes, one in which the men might put their vote on all school matters, and the other where women might put theirs on the ones above specified.
Office Holding: In 1873 a law was passed that "no person hereafter shall be eligible to the office of school trustee unless he or she can read and write," and women were authorized to serve when duly elected. In 1894, when the School Suffrage was taken away by the Supreme Court, thirty-two were holding the office and the decision did not abrogate this right. They have continued to be elected and twenty-seven are serving at the present time. At Englewood, in 1899, Miss Adaline Sterling was president of the board. Women are not eligible as State or county superintendents.
Four of the nine trustees of the State Industrial School for Girls are women, and a woman physician is employed when one is needed.
Dr. Mary J. Dunlop has been superintendent and medical director of the State Institution for Feeble-Minded Women since 1886, and three of the seven managers are women.