Read the excerpt from Suffragists' "Great Demand" Banner
Chronological structure is used in this passage to
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describe colonial voting practices in context.
explain the reason for a voting age requirement.
O provide information about the 1848 convention.
give an overview of voting rights in early America.
From colonial times to the American independence
movement and the writing of the U. S. Constitution,
voting rights had been restricted. Each colony had
made its own rules about who could vote, and this
practice continued once they became states.
Requirements generally called for a certain age of
maturity, generally twenty-one, and ownership of
property, among other qualifications. Younger adults,
Indians, African Americans, and women were typically
disqualified from voting. While there were stirrings for
the right of women to vote in the early nineteenth
century, the cause took on a new seriousness with the
Seneca Falls Convention of 1848.