Suffragists Interpret Abraham Lincoln

Twentieth century suffragists hoped to capitalize on the popularity of former President Abraham Lincoln in order to promote the female vote, claiming "Lincoln said women should vote" (GLC09103). In 1836, while running for re-election to the Illinois General Assembly, Lincoln wrote to the editor of the Sangamo Journal: "I go for all sharing the privileges of the government, who assist in bearing its burdens. Consequently I go for admitting all whites to the right of suffrage, who pay taxes or bear arms, (by no means excluding females.)"[1] Scholars disagree on what Lincoln’s intentions may have been when he wrote this statement. Lincoln biographer David Herbert Donald suggests that the comment was a "tongue-in-cheek joke," since Lincoln knew women could not pay taxes in Illinois or join the militia.[2] Yet others assert that Lincoln was an early advocate of women’s suffrage. Historians’ disagreement exposes the fact that Lincoln’s words have been adapted and manipulated to fit a variety of agendas. Whatever his motivations may have been, Lincoln was not known as an outspoken advocate of women’s suffrage; slavery, Civil War, and abolition eclipsed other issues that arose during his Presidency.

This poster served as a supplement to the Votes for Women magazine circa 1910, the year Washington State approved full women’s suffrage. The suffrage movement experienced resurgence in the early twentieth century, and in this context Washington journalist "Missouri" T. B. Hanna began publication of Votes for Women in Seattle’s Arcade Building. After Washington women gained the vote in 1910, Hanna renamed her magazine The New Citizen and continued publication until 1912.

Alyson Barrett, Associate Archivist
The Gilder Lehrman Collection

Click to see the document.

GLC09103 Lincoln Said Women Should Vote, 1910. Printed document

Basler, Roy P., ed. The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln. New Brunswick, New Jersey: Rutgers University Press, 1953.

Blaisdell, Bob, ed. The Wit and Wisdom of Abraham Lincoln. Mineola, New York: Dover Publications, 2005.

Carwardine, Richard. Lincoln: A Life of Purpose and Power. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2006.

Donald, David Herbert. Lincoln. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1995.

Mead, Rebecca J. How the Vote was won: Woman Suffrage in the Western United States, 1868-1914. New York: New York University Press, 2004.

Woloch, Nancy, ed. Women and the American Experience. Boston: McGraw-Hill, 2000.

[1] Basler, The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, Volume I, 48.

[2] Donald, Lincoln, 59.