Harry Thomas Burn was 22 years old when he was first elected to the Tennessee State Legislature. Harry was the oldest of four born to James & Febb Burn in Mouse Creek - now Niota - Tennessee, between Chattanooga and Knoxville.
James Burn was the Niota depot stationmaster and opened some businesses around town. His mother, known by pretty much everybody as "Miss Febb," was a teacher after graduating from what is now Tennessee Wesleyan University.
Women actually had the right to vote in the pre-Revolutionary Colonies. It was in early 1776 that Abigail Adams wrote her husband, and future 2nd President of the United States, John:
I long to hear that you have declared an independency - and by the way in the new Code of Laws which I suppose it will be necessary for your to make I desire you would Remember the Ladies, and be more generous and favourable to them than your ancestors. Do not put such unlimited power into the hands of the Husbands. Remember all Men would be tyrants if they could. 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.
But by the time the Constitution itself was ratified in 1789, the delegates kicked it to the curb (also see: abolishing Slavery). Every state explicitly denied women the right to vote - except for New Jersey, who allowed female landowners to vote until 1807, when even they backed out and limited voting privileges to white dudes.
1848 saw the Seneca Falls Convention, in which 300 women and men not only advocated for women's suffrage (Suffrage: sounds Bad, is actually Good) but for equality for women in every aspect of societal and political life. The 1830s and 1840s were big decades for the women's suffrage movement. William Lloyd Garrison was the editor of The Liberator - a prominent and influential abolitionist newspaper from 1831 to the end of the Civil War - and became friends with Lucretia Mott, an early feminist and abolitionist who was influential on Garrison, who also became committed to women's rights. There was a definite crossover between the abolitionist and women's suffrage.
Suffragettes like sisters Sarah and Angelina Grimké spoke out:
Are we aliens because we are women? Are we bereft of citizenship because we are the mothers, wives, and daughters of a mighty people?
Women's suffrage kinda sorta took a backseat to the Civil War. But when that [waves hands above head] Whole Thing ended, it was on. As the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments were being debated, suffragettes pushed to have women included in the right to vote. In 1866 Pennsylvania Senator Edgar Cowan introduced an amendment to provide for women's suffrage, and was promptly defeated 37-9. There were two major women's suffrage camps:
The National Woman Suffrage Association (NWSA), led by Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony, wanted to get to vote by pressuring Congress to add an amendment to the Constitution. The American Woman Suffrage Association, led by Lucy Stone, wanted to slow-play it by pressuring state legislatures on a state-by-state basis.
The NWSA argued that the 14th Amendment applied to giving women the right to vote - which was passed in 1868 and said that:
All persons born or naturalized in the United States...are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside...No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property...nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
That year, 1868, Kansas Senator Samuel Pomeroy introduced another bill that would provide universal suffrage. It was tabled...indefinitely.
Also, the NWSA argued the 15th Amendment (1869) should also guarantee suffrage for women, which said:
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 race, color, or previous condition of servitude.
In the year that the 15th Amendment to the Constitution was ratified, Myra Bradwell - a woman of good character - passed the Illinois State Bar exam, giving her "sufficient training to be admitted to the practice of law." That said, the Illinois Supreme Court took a Hard Pass on Those Shenanigans, saying that the "strife" of being a lawyer would destroy her femininity.
How could they legally justify such a thing? There's a common law doctrine of "coverture" - a holdover from feudal Norman law that essentially said that, prior to marriage, a woman could do normal things, like execute a will, sign a contract, sue or be sued, etc. But once she got married those rights were suspended under a "marital unity" clause in which the husband/wife's were consolidated under one entity: the husband's. Once married, women basically didn't have legal rights anymore. Using an offshoot of the Coverture clause - aka Privileges and Immunities Clause of the 14th Amendment, the Illinois Supreme Court batted Myra Bradwell down. She appealed. This eventually became Bradwell v. Illinois, and the Supreme Court (with one exception) said the 14th Amendment doesn't apply to women who happen to have passed the Bar and want to be lawyers. Justice Joseph P. Bradley, who had a history of a narrow interpretation of the 14th Amendment, went so far as to write of the importance of the "respective spheres of man and woman," with the woman's role of wife/mother naturally following the "law of the Creator."
Still, progress towards women's suffrage continued to be made. Wyoming gave women the right to vote in 1869.
Another challenge came in 1875, and still the Supreme Court used a narrow interpretation of the Privileges and Immunities Clause, this time in the case of Virginia Minor. Minor was a prominent Missouri suffrage leader who tried to register to vote in 1872 and was denied by registrar Reese Happersett, on the grounds that she was a woman. Her husband, Francis, was a lawyer and supported her test case. Minor sued Happersett using the 14th Amendment as a defense, and it went to the Missouri Supreme Court, who ruled that the "almost universal practice of the States" granted voting rights to men, only, saying that the 14th Amendment explicitly gave voting rights to the formerly enslaved, and should not be used as a precedent to change other laws.
Minor v. Happersett went to the U.S. Supreme Court in 1874. The Minors said women's suffrage was implied by the intent of the Founding Fathers. The Supreme Court said that the only thing in question was whether the Constitution specifically gave women the right to vote and that, no, it didn't. The State of Missouri was represented by a three-sentence written objection that was whole-heartedly endorsed by the Supreme Court. But the tide was starting to turn.
Thirty years after the Seneca Falls Convention, five years after Bradwell v. Illinois, four years after Minor v. Happersett, a Constitutional Amendment was proposed in 1878 to give women the right to vote. California Senator Aaron A. Sargent - whose wife, Ellen Clark Sargent, was a friend of Susan B. Anthony - introduced the bill to the Senate. Elizabeth Cady Stanton and others testified before the Senate in support of the bill. Five months later a petition with 30,000 signatures was brought before Congress. The bill failed, 34-16.
In 1888 the House of Representatives voted for limited suffrage for spinsters or widows who owned property. It failed. But progress was being made. Colorado granted partial women's suffrage in 1893, Idaho in 1896. Washington state granted women the right to vote in 1910, California followed in 1911.
Anti-Suffragists were making their case. In 1897 prominent Anti-Suffragist Helen Kendrick Johnson published Woman and the Republic, in which she said:
Progress is a magic word, and the Suffrage party has been fortunate in its attempt to invoke the sorcery of the thought that it enfolds, and to blend it with the claim of woman to share in the public duty of voting...As I read political history, the facts go to show that the fundamental principles of our Government are more opposed to the exercise of suffrage by women than are those of monarchies. To me it seems that both despotism and anarchy are more friendly to woman's political aspirations than is any form of constitutional government, and that manhood suffrage, and not womanhood suffrage, is the final result of the evolution of democracy.
As we've seen in recent years, there's a lot of notoriety to be had when you look like the people you are trying to oppress.
On April 14, 1910 suffragettes met with President William Howard Taft to lobby for women's suffrage. Taft, who was over 350 pounds, got so mad he exclaimed that if women got the right to vote, "power might be exercised by the least desirable person." He cheered himself up by going to the Washington Senators/Philadelphia Athletics game on Opening Day. Taft threw out the first pitch of the game, and a tradition of president throwing out the first pitch on Opening Day was born.
The National Association Opposed to Woman Suffrage (NAOWS) was founded in 1911, with membership originally consisting of people from two camps: wealthy Northeastern families who just didn't want to upset the status quo, and wealthy Southerners who were afraid that equal rights for women would naturally lead to equal rights for minorities. It's said that NAOWS membership numbered 350,000. Anya Jabour, a history professor at the University of Montana, explained that: "Many of the women in the anti-suffrage movement felt that the political system was a corrupt space, and if women joined it, they would inevitably become just as corrupt as the men." And, as with pretty much everything else in American society, it sort of came down to race. Broadsides were distributed that said women's suffrage would eventually lead to "Negro domination of our government."
The movement marched forward. In 1912 Oregon, Arizona, and Kansas all passed a suffrage bill. Note how all of these are western states, which tended to be more progressive than their eastern counterparts. A year later, in 1913, a petition was delivered to the Senate with over 75,000 signatures and followed with a parade in what was called "The Siege of the Senate." According to the New York Evening Journal:
Women were jeered, tripped, grabbed, shoved, and many heard "indecent epithets" and "barnyard conversation." Instead of protecting the parade, the police "seemed to enjoy all the ribald jokes and laughter, and part participated (sic) in them." One policeman remarked that the women should stay home where they belonged. The men in the procession heard shouts of "Henpecko" and "Where are your skirts?" As one witness explained, "There was a sort of spirit of levity connected with the crowd. They did not regard the affair very seriously."
The New York Times ran an editorial that year which stated:
The benefits of woman suffrage are almost wholly imaginary. Its penalties will be real and hard to bear.
On March 19, 1914 the Senate - eight months after the Siege - which required a 2/3 super-majority to support it - failed to pass giving women the right to vote by 11 votes, 35-34. World War 1 happened. As it does. By 1918, after the House of Representatives had passed the Susan B. Anthony Amendment, President Woodrow Wilson, now a converted suffragette (because he needed it for the war effort), spoke in favor of giving women the right to vote. This time it failed in the Senate by two votes.
1918 featured a mid-term election in the middle of a - wait for it - GLOBAL PANDEMIC. President Wilson was fighting for his 14 Points and League of Nations, but also trying to garner support for universal suffrage. After getting blasted by Helen H. Gardener and Carrie Chapman Catt, Woodrow Wilson advocated for universal suffrage in his 1919 State of the Union. The Senate fell one vote short on February 10, 1919 - mainly opposed by Southern congressmen. Less than four months later, the Senate - 41 years after Aaron Sargent formally proposed women's suffrage, and 71 years after the Seneca Falls Convention - suffragettes had the votes. Needing a 2/3 super-majority, the Senate passed the Susan B. Anthony Amendment 56-25. Two votes made the difference.
The stage was set. See, The Rules say that 75% of the states have to approve an Amendment before it actually becomes A Thing. In 1920 there were 48 states, so you need 36 state legislatures to approve it before it can be an Amendment. But November 1920 was a full-on election. By June 1920 - with a presidential and congressional election coming five months later - anti-suffragists were saying that anything that happened that Summer would be undone with the election. At this point, 35 states had approved women's suffrage, eight had voted against it. There were five states yet to hold a vote, but four of those states refused to call a special session to consider giving women the right to vote. One more state voting for the Amendment would seal it. Tennessee agreed to hold a special session. The Tennessee State Senate passed the measure easily, the fight stalled in the Tennessee State House of Representatives. This brings us back to the youngest state legislator in Tennessee, 24-year old Harry Burn.
The fight descended on Nashville, setting up camp in The Hermitage Hotel, half a mile from the Tennessee State Capitol building. The vote was set for August 1920. Tennessee state legislators were paired off - those opposed to women's suffrage, wearing a red rose on the lapel of their suit, and those in favor of giving women the right to vote, wearing a yellow rose. Allegations of corruption ran deep as anti-suffrage forces tried to bribe or coerce State Representatives. Industrialists didn't want women to have the right to vote, as women might end up voting for tougher labor laws. The Alcohol lobby wasn't interested in women having the right to vote because of Prohibition, so they set up the Jack Daniel's Suite at The Hermitage Hotel, ready to lube up the legislators.
Friday, August 18, 1920 saw impassioned speeches from both sides in the Tennessee State Legislature. House Speaker Seth L. Walker hollered:
The hour has come. The battle has been fought and won, and I move...that the motion to concur in the Senate action goes where it belongs - to the table.
Basically, Walker was asking for the vote to be tabled until after the November elections. Harry Burn wore a red rose on his lapel, signifying his intention to vote for the right for women not to vote. Burn was facing re-election in a few months, and McMinn County was pretty divided. Burn voted twice to table the vote until the next legislature, hoping that he could stay in the good graces of party leadership and his constituents, get re-elected, and then do it all again. But the vote was 48-48, which led to Speaker Walker calling for an immediate re-vote, calling on the legislators to consider the issue of women's suffrage "on its merits." It would be decided in the special session, not by kicking the can down the road until after November.
Rep. Burn had two items on or near his lapel: the red rose pin, and a letter from his mother, "Miss Febb." The seven-page letter updated Harry on the goings-on around town and the farm, but also:
Hurrah, and vote for suffrage! Don't keep them in doubt. I notice some the speeches against. They were bitter. I have been watching to see how you stood, but have not noticed anything yet....Be a good boy and help Mrs. [Carrie Chapman] Catt put the 'rat' in ratification.
Armed with the letter from his mother, when it was time for the roll call, Burn's name appeared fairly early in the proceedings. He gave a soft-spoken "Aye," voting for ratification of the 19th Amendment to the Constitution. It took a little while for everyone who had gathered to watch the vote to realize what had just happened. When all legislators had cast their ballot, the result was 49-47 in favor. 24-year old Harry Burn's vote was the deciding one. Tennessee was the 36th state to ratify the 19th Amendment, and women had the right to vote. Yellow roses rained down on the floor of the House from Suffragists in the gallery.
Immediately Speaker Walker called for a motion to reconsider. It failed. Burn inserted a statement into the Journal of the Tennessee State House of Representatives, saying:
I knew that a mother's advice is always safest for a boy to follow, and my mother wanted me to vote for ratification. I appreciated the fact that an opportunity such as seldom comes to a mortal man to free 17 million women from political slavery was mine.
The Knoxville Sentinel published a limerick:
There is a young man from Niota
Who for precedent cares no iota
He sprung a surprise
When he flopped to the 'Ayes,'
And enraptured the feminine voter!
But the fight wasn't over just yet. 37 Anti-Suffragist Tennessee legislators quickly boarded a train bound for Decatur, Alabama in an effort to prevent a quorum for any further action. That failed, too. Two Anti-Suffragists swore in an affidavit that Burn had been bribed, leading to a grand jury investigation into his actions. He was cleared.
Miss Febb registered to vote on October 9, 1920 and was eligible to vote in the 1920 mid-term elections. Her voter registration card still had masculine pronouns because they didn't have time to reprint new cards. Now faced with a grueling re-election campaign in McMinn County as That Guy What Let Women Vote, his campaign attracted nationwide attention, and not necessarily positive:
People from all over the country went into my county. They held indignation meetings, passed resolutions...When I went home for a weekend I would generally keep a bodyguard around so that no one would attack me.
Burn narrowly won re-election to another two-year term.
In 1923, Burn was admitted to practice law in Tennessee and did so for the rest of his life, also serving in the State Senate from 1948 to 1952, and becoming the president of a bank. He died at his home in Niota in 1977. Before his death, but years after that fateful vote, Burn recalled:
I had always believed that women had an inherent right to vote. It was a logical attitude from my standpoint. My mother was a college woman, a student of national and international affairs who took an interest in all public issues. She could not vote. Yet the tenant farmers on our farm, some of whom were illiterate, could vote. On that roll call, confronted with the fact that I was going to go on record for time and eternity on the merits of the question, I had to vote for ratification.
And people really say that one vote doesn't matter.
Less than a month after the official ratification of the 19th Amendment, Connecticut became the 37th state legislature to ratify it. Vermont followed in February 1921. Maryland didn't ratify the Amendment until 1941. Virginia? 1952. Alabama: 1953. Florida was the 43rd state to do so...in 1969. South Carolina, Georgia, Louisiana, and North Carolina all followed suit by the end of 1971. Mississippi had the distinction of being the last of the original 48 states to officially give women the right to vote...in 1984.
