It gives an overview of the rhetoric and practice of tax resistance in the
women’s suffrage movement in the United States, and explains why such tax
resistance was relatively rare (compared, say, with the movement in Britain) — with a number of notable individual examples, but little in the way of a
sustained and general tax resistance movement.
Among the reasons:
The American women’s suffrage movement was in general less militant than
the movement in Britain.
American suffragist activists seemed more risk-averse than their British
counterparts, with even those who did practice tax resistance being
largely reluctant to take things to the stage of imprisonment or property
seizure (with some exceptions).
For a time, there was a competing tactic — called the “New Departure
strategy” — that urged women to vote under the theory that
the U.S. Constitution’s 14th Amendmentalready guaranteed women the vote. But since some states made
tax-paying a prerequisite for voting, tax resistance would interfere with
women who wanted to test the New Departure strategy. (The Supreme Court
deflated the New Departure strategy when it decided in
Minor v. Happersett () that though women were indeed citizens, this did not
automatically grant them voting rights.)
The potent “no taxation without representation” argument really only
implied that taxpayers should have the vote. During the time of
the suffrage debate, only the wealthy paid direct taxes. But the women’s
movement largely wasn’t interested in fighting for the rights of wealthy
women to vote, but for all women, on the same terms as men. This
made the taxation-without-representation argument less useful, and tax
resistance less of an attractive tactic.
I’m wondering why this was less of an issue in Britain, where taxes also
fell largely on the well-off (which is why, in the tax resistance cases
reported in The Vote that I’ve been
reproducing here, it seems like all the feminists have motorcars,
estates, and plenty of silver to be seized and auctioned off). I
remember women being advised in one issue that if they currently were
subject to no tax, they should go out immediately and get a dog so that
they could refuse to pay the dog license tax! One answer to this
conundrum is that in Britain at the time only a propertied minority of
men were able to vote, so women who agitated for the voting
rights of wealthy, taxpaying women, would have been arguing for a
political equality in a way that their counterparts in the
United States would not.
In all, a fascinating article, and welcome proof that I’m not the only one
who finds the history of tax resistance interesting.
This year [1911?] Miss Lou [Lucy] J.C. Daniels, a liberal contributor to the
suffrage association, her family the largest taxpayers in Grafton [Vermont],
where they had a summer home, was indignant to learn that the Representative
of her district had voted against the suffrage bill in the Legislature. She
sent a written protest and refusal to pay her taxes, whereupon an official
served papers on her and several shares of stock in the Bellows Falls
National Bank were attached and sold at auction. The bank declared it illegal
and declined to honor the sale. The matter aroused discussion throughout
the State and surrounding country. When the town elected a Representative who
supported woman suffrage she considered the lesson sufficient and paid her
taxes.
Another
section of The History concerns the California
court case of Ellen Clark Sargent, who sued San Francisco to recover her
taxes:
In , to make a test case, Mrs. Ellen Clark
Sargent brought suit before Judge M. C. Sloss, of the Supreme Court of
San Francisco, to recover her taxes for that year, about $500. The city
through its attorney filed a demurrer which was argued
by George C. Sargent, son of the
plaintiff and a member of the bar. He based his masterly argument on the
ground that a constitution which declares that “all political power is
inherent in the people” has no right to exclude one-half of the people from
the exercise of this inherent power. He quoted the most eminent authorities
to prove that taxation and representation are inseparable; that the people of
the United States would have been slaves if they had not enjoyed the
constitutional right of granting or withholding their own money; that it is
inseparably essential to the freedom of a people that no taxes can be imposed
upon them except with their consent given personally or by their
representatives. He said in closing:
If Article Ⅰ of the State constitution defines inalienable rights and
Article Ⅱ abrogates them, it is monarchy. The Code of Civil Procedure says
that where one of two constructions is in favor of natural right and the
other against it, the former shall be accepted. The question is whether the
Court shall grant this right, or whether by toil and struggle it shall be
wrung from the consciences of the electors.
The court decided that the case required a mandamus before the Registrar.
Application was then made for a writ of mandate against the Registrar of
Elections to compel him to place Mrs. Sargent’s name upon the list of voters.
Should this be denied she asked to have her taxes returned. Both demands were
refused by Judge Sloss in the Superior Court. He took the ground that if Mr.
Sargent’s argument should be carried to its logical conclusion it would
enfranchise idiots, lunatics and criminals; that if there is a conflict
between the two sections of the constitution cited it should be settled in
favor of limiting the suffrage to males, as where a general and a particular
provision are inconsistent the latter is paramount to the former. He quoted
various State Supreme Court decisions and declared that he decided the case
according to the law.*
As Mrs. Sargent had every assurance that this judgment would be sustained by
the Supreme Court she did not carry the case further. It attracted attention
and comment in all parts of the country and she received encouragement and
wishes for her success from all classes of society.
* During this trial Mrs. Sargent and her friends in attendance were
caricatured in the most shameless manner by the San Francisco
Call, which had passed under a new management.
