# What states still have laws against woman suffrage? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [March 27, 2007, 9:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-states-still-have-laws-against-woman-suffrage/397741 "2007-03-27T21:10:44Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 4\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Sophistry\_and\_Illusion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b3f665/32.png) [@Sophistry\_and\_Illusion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sophistry_and_Illusion)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2007, 2:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-states-still-have-laws-against-woman-suffrage/397741/21 "2007-03-28T14:04:14Z")
[QUOTE=Freddy the Pig] I haven’t searched all 50 state Constitutions, but I’d be shocked if any still retain language restricting suffrage to males. [/QUOTE] You’d be surprised. When I lived in Alabama (1999-2000), there was still an anti-miscegenation law on the books, and Alabama was undergoing a voter referendum to decide whether to remove it or not. The voters elected to remove it, but a shocking and depressing number (I think it was around 30-40%) voted to keep it. The naive, optimistic part of me interpreted these votes as a symbolic gesture in favor of states’ rights and against federal intrusion, but the cynical part of me interpreted them as the votes of a bunch of troglodytic, racist assholes. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2007, 3:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-states-still-have-laws-against-woman-suffrage/397741/22 "2007-03-28T15:27:05Z")
> [@](#): > > Can you (or anyone) explain in words of few syllables how the court could do this, when the Dredd Scott decision (AIUI) was pretty much an unequivocal defense of property rights within the Union, no matter what? Generally speaking, _Dred Scott v. Sandford_ isn’t a legal precedant you want to put a lot of weight on - it’s widely (and justifiably) considered the Supreme Court’s worst decision, not only from a moral standpoint but due to its very poor legal reasoning. On the specific issue of property rights, _Dred Scott_ doesn’t appear to say anything that would apply to _Gonzales v. Raich_. It said that the federal government cannot prohibit any property in territories that were legal in any state because by doing so it would be discriminating against the settlement of the territory by residents of that state. ---
**Author:** ![Freddy\_the\_Pig](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/a587f6/32.png) [@Freddy\_the\_Pig](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freddy_the_Pig)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2007, 4:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-states-still-have-laws-against-woman-suffrage/397741/23 "2007-03-28T16:12:07Z")
[QUOTE=Sophistry and Illusion] You’d be surprised. When I lived in Alabama (1999-2000), there was still an anti-miscegenation law on the books, and Alabama was undergoing a voter referendum to decide whether to remove it or not. [/QUOTE] I do remember the dust-up over “miscegenation”, but that was still a live issue as late as the 1960’s, so we’re talking about a 35-year lag from invalidation to amendment. Whereas women’s suffrage was settled in 1920 and rapidly ceased to be controversial after its enactment. Your post, however, made me ponder that Alabama and Mississippi are two of the first places one should look when searching for archaic constitutional provisions. Neither has had a Constitutional Convention for more than 100 years (Con Cons often clean up obsolete language), and both tend to be somewhat, ah, _resistant to change_ in certain matters. However, it appears that Mississippi omitted “male” from its suffrage requirement (Section 241) long ago. I can’t determine the exact date, but it probably happened in conjunction with other suffrage changes. And even Alabama finally got around to it in 1996, when it rewrote its suffrage article to clean up all the old baggage about literacy tests, “good character”, 21-year-old males, and so forth. I’d be surpised if any state were more recalcitrant than those two. At least 15 states enacted women’s suffrage on their own before 1920, and many more were in the process of doing so when the federal amendment intervened. Most states have had to rewirte their suffrage qualifications for other reasons since 1920 (18-year-old vote, for example), or have held Constitutional Conventions, and in either case detritus tends to get cleaned up. ---
**Author:** ![control-z](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/eada6e/32.png) [@control-z](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/control-z)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2007, 4:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-states-still-have-laws-against-woman-suffrage/397741/24 "2007-03-28T16:40:56Z")
[QUOTE=Shagnasty] I am not sure how it played out back in the day. However, I have seen television programs where they set up a booth for women to sign petitions against women’s suffrage outside major events. The line was long and demonstrators were screaming at the petitioners for some reason. I can’t see it surviving a widespread vote. [/QUOTE] Um, are you talking about The Man Show? Adam and Jimmy were out trying to get people to sign a petition to end women’s suffrage, and of course many signed it thinking it meant “the suffering of women” or some nonsense. Hmm, don’t have a clip, I guess Viacom had their way with YouTube. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-states-still-have-laws-against-woman-suffrage/397741.md?page=1)