The Plot to Overturn Women's Suffrage
A leaked political scheme from 1886 reveals a coordinated attempt by territorial Democrats to replace the judiciary and strip Washington women of their voting rights.
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 Port Townsend Argus is authority for the following: A plot that is just now surfacing for supremacy in the Democratic party of Washington Territory is in the shape of a proposition to commit the party to uncompromising anti-suffrage and anti-women suffrage. Judge Turner holds women suffrage to be unconstitutional, and Judge Langford leans as far in that direction. The plan is to secure a Democratic judge when Chief Justice Greene runs out; one who will hold that the law is unconstitutional, and have it at once upset by judicial process. And then, there is no doubt that a deep-laid plan is on foot to have the courts declare the women suffrage act of this Territory is invalid, and it will not be surprising to hear that a test case has been made up to carry the matter before the Supreme Court of the United States.
“A deep-laid plan is on foot to have the courts declare the women suffrage act of this Territory is invalid.”
This 1886 report documents an early attempt to use 'judicial activism' to undo progressive voting rights in Washington—a mirror to modern anxieties about how shifting court compositions can invalidate long-standing civic protections. The struggle for democratic access in the Washington Territory remains a foundational thread in the state's political history.
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