Drafting Washington's Founding Charter
Delegates at the constitutional convention debate the future of the state, including voting rights, tide lands, and the location of the capital.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
The constitutional convention adjourned, having held that the document to be submitted and rated upon by the people on the first Tuesday in October will contain as many progressive features as any other document in the United States. The delegates feared that if the woman suffrage clause were included in the body of the document, it would endanger its acceptance by the people, which decided them in favor of submitting a suffrage article outside of the regular document, to be voted upon by the qualified male electors at the time of the vote upon the constitution. The article in regard to which there was the greatest difference of opinion was that regulating the tide lands, and this subject was disposed of at the last moment in the 18th article, in which the state asserts its ownership to the tide and shores of all navigable waters in the state up to and including the line of ordinary high tide.
“The delegates feared that if the woman suffrage clause were included in the body of the document, it would endanger its acceptance.”
This article outlines the constitutional debates of 1889, including the controversial decision to put women's suffrage to a male-only vote. It serves as a reminder that Washington's foundational documents were products of intense political negotiation, particularly regarding public resources like tide lands and the definition of the franchise.
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