WHY IS IT CALLED "SUFFRAGE?"
A vote is just a vote, but suffrage is a vote with high purpose. Thus it is no surprise that the high-purposed radical movement to extend the vote to women adopted the term suffrage to sum up its goal. Suffrage was already enshrined in the U.S. Constitution, where it applies to a right so fundamental it cannot be amended away. According to Article 5, the Constitution can be amended with approval of the legislatures of three-fourths of the states, except that "no State, without its consent, shall be deprived of its equal suffrage in the Senate."
This was the first use of suffrage to mean, "voting as a right rather than a privilege." In the earlier sense of "privilege," suffrage had been in the English language since the Middle Ages. Suffrages originally were prayers. Then the meaning was extended to requests for assistance, then to assistance itself, then the assistance provided by a supporting vote, and finally the vote itself. So it stood when in 1787 the Constitution used suffrage to mean "an inalienable right to vote."
And the right to vote, not merely the condescending permission to do so, was what advocated of women's equality sought. Hence they used suffrage, either in the phrase female suffrage or simply by itself, with the understanding that suffrage referred to the vote for the half of the adult population that had been excluded. By the early 1840's there was a Suffrage Party with this as their mission.
Even beyond its legal meaning, suffrage had connotations that helped the cause move forward. The word often evokes the dual meanings of suffer: "to allow," but also "to endure pain and hardship," here for the particular sake of achieving a goal. The goal of the suffrage movement was accomplished in 1920.
The Nineteenth Amendment to the Constitution: "The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex." With that amendment, the word suffrage was retired too. Since then, campaigns to extend the vote have simply called for "voting rights."
It took years of great effort--from well before the first National Woman Suffrage Association Convention in Seneca Falls, New York in 1869 until the passage of the amendment in 1920. Women rallied, wrote letters, picketed and were jailed for the cause. The history of women in our country is one of strength, foresight and perseverance. No wonder the entire month of March is celebrated as Women's History Month.
