Activity Suffrage

1. Students should read the INTRODUCTION and the four DOCUMENTS, using the guidelines for reading primary documents. For background reading, students might read the XIV Amendment to the United States Constitution and identify the wording in Section 2 that alarmed suffragists.

2.Students can identify and discuss the various tactics used by suffragists represented in these documents. What did these tactics involve for the women undertaking them? Were they risky?
In what ways? What was the reaction of public officials to these tactics? In what ways were these tactics effective and/or ineffective at the time?

3. Students break into two groups. One group will assume the role of suffrage advocates. The other will assume the role of government officials.

     A. Role play the attempt to vote by Portia Gage.
                                     - or -
     B. Debate the pros and cons of woman suffrage using the
         arguments put forth in Lucy Stone’s speech of March 6,
         1867 and the report of the New Jersey Assembly Judiciary
         Committee of April 9, 1868.

4. Students research the answers to the following questions:

How can our current state constitution be amended?

When was the New Jersey Constitution last amended?

What kinds of reforms have recently been proposed as
constitutional amendments?

     Then discuss: Under what conditions should the state
     constitution be amended?
     What tactics would be effective today for passing a
     constitutional amendment?

5. For additional study, have students research the lives of national
suffrage leaders Lucy Stone, Antoinette Brown Blackwell,
Elizabeth Cady Stanton, or Alice Paul and discuss the role that
New Jersey played in their careers as reformers.


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