For What Is a Citizen But a Vote?

by

Lauren Roberts

There are two kinds of restrictions upon human liberty—the restraint of law and that of custom. No written law has ever been more binding than unwritten custom supported by public opinion.

—Carrie Chapman Catt

The American women’s campaign for the right to vote might be said to have its origins in a letter dated March 31, 1776. In this wife-to-husband missive, Abigail Adams reminded John, who was in Philadelphia attending the Continental Congress to work on the Declaration of Independence, to “. . . remember the ladies and be more generous and favorable to them than your ancestors . . . If particular care and attention is not paid to the ladies, we are determined to foment a rebellion, and will not hold ourselves bound by any laws in which we have no voice or representation.”