Curiously enough, it has just been proved that at one
time women did vote regularly in New Jersey. Miss Lucy Stone and Miss H. B. Blackwell, citizens of New Jersey, have shown that in 1776 the original State Constitution conferred the franchise on "all inhabitants" (men or women, white or black) possessing 50/. clear estate, and qualified by 12 months' residence, and this continued so till 1844. In 1790 the Legislature used the words "he or she" in reference to the voters. In 1797 seventy-five women voted in Elizabethtown for the Federal candidate. In 1800 women generally voted throughout the State, in the Presidential contest between Jefferson and Adams. In 1802 a member of the Legis- lature was carried in a claw contest by the votes of two or three 'coloured women. In 1807 men and women voted generally in a local election in Essex county, and were jointly implicated in very extensive frauds. In 1807-8, the Legislature, in violation of the Constitution, which was not altered till 1844, restricted the voters to white males, excluding women and negroes. In 1820 this provision was repeated, and in 1844 a new constitution, em- bodying the same provision, was enacted. New Jersey was in great measure originally a Quaker State.
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