Once a month, The duty challenges history buffs to decipher a topical theme based on a comparison with a historical event or figure.
In Lower Canada, women had the right to vote in the first elections, in 1792, before losing it almost 60 years later. For, in this colony, the right to vote rests on property.
The most widespread matrimonial regime is the community of property. The management of the property is then entrusted to the husband. Wives can, however, retain ownership of their property by signing a marriage contract in separation of property. Widowed, they become legally capable and manage the community for the benefit of the children. Finally, single people enjoy full legal capacity and can administer their property.
A Lower Canadian who owns property, who is of legal age and who is widowed, single or married in separation of property can therefore vote.
At the time, each voter must go to the place of the vote and state his identity, his state or his trade, his qualifications, his place of residence, specify whether he is an owner or a tenant, take an oath and name the candidate chosen to aloud. This information is compiled by a reporting officer, who takes care of the smooth running of the elections. In general, these last three days, but can be spread over a few weeks. Finally, although it is prohibited, they are marked by vandalism, fraud, the complacency of reporting officers and the intimidation of thugs.
In the registers preserved, the historian Nathalie Picard noted 961 women who presented themselves to vote between 1792 and 1849. They were women from all walks of life. Francophones represent more than 60% of all female voters. At least one black woman voted in 1820, in Bedford, and 27 Aboriginal women did so in Huntingdon in 1824.
Widows vote in greater numbers, followed by single women and married women (separated from property and body). The practice is concentrated in the district of Montreal. The consistency is remarkable, since at least one woman exercises her right in almost every election, and some vote in more than one election. In Upper Canada (Ontario), the situation seems quite different: in the surviving registers, the name of only one woman can be found.
Discretionary power
The reporting officer or the candidates can administer an oath to voters in order to confirm that they comply with the required conditions. In the case of women, proof may be requested of their property or their matrimonial regime.
The reporting officer is often called upon to decide. In 1822, that of Bedford accepted the vote of married women, whereas in 1832, that of William-Henry refused it and that of the Upper Town of Quebec decided not to accept any votes from women. In 1828, voters from the same place presented a petition to the House to oppose the decision of the returning officer William Fisher Scott, who had refused the widows’ vote the previous year. For them, the latter are completely qualified: “The right to vote is not a natural right for either men or women; it is given by law. »
Some believe that women are instrumentalized by candidates. This was the case in 1832, during the Montreal West by-elections opposing Stanley Bagg to Daniel Tracey. These elections, marked by the intervention of the army and the death of three Canadians, ended in victory for Tracey. Out of 1378 voters, 216 women showed up to vote.
According to The Minerva, Bagg’s supporters stopped at nothing to try to win. On May 21, 1832, the newspaper patriote stops on the case of Austin Cuvillier, deputy and justice of the peace, who voted on May 18 for Bagg. His wife, Marie-Claire Perrault, was the sister and aunt of Patriot deputies, in addition to owning large lots bequeathed by her mother. She also recorded her voice for Bagg the next day. In the register, the reporting officer specified that she is “separated from property by court judgment”, while the couple signed a marriage contract in community of property. The validity of this separation is at the heart of the questioning: “Mme Cuvillier being still under the power of her husband, did she have the right which she was made to exercise? The reporting officer did not find the case thorny; he decided without hesitation that Mme Cuvillier had to vote. »
The House of Assembly investigates the events. Tracey’s supporters accuse the reporting officer of bias, particularly because he admitted married women to vote with their husbands. Six couples actually showed up. In three cases, only one of the two spouses was able to vote, including a wife, Augusta Bell.
misquoted Papineau
Faced with increasing disputes, the deputies are looking into the electoral law. On January 27, 1834, John Neilson introduced a bill on the matter. Among the weaknesses of the law, he mentions “the right for women to vote, which is still undecided”, the taking of the oath and the power of reporting officers.
Patriot leader Louis-Joseph Papineau adds the intervention of legislative councilors in the elections and the appointment of reporting officers by the governor. “As for the practice of having women vote, it is right to destroy it. It is ridiculous, it is odious to see dragging hustings women by their husbands, daughters by their fathers, often even against their will. The public interest, decency, the modesty of sex demand that these scandals not be repeated. A simple resolution of the House which would exclude these people from the right to vote would save many inconveniences, ”he specifies.
A vigorous exchange ensued between Papineau and Cuvillier. Playing on words, the latter claims to have seen Papineau receive “their voices with pleasure”. Papineau replies: “The word attributed to me here has never been used. Cuvillier continues: “What! Haven’t we used the expressions lack of prudence, indecency, immodesty? “Papineau, whose grandmother Beaudry would have voted in 1809, denies the shortcuts of the deputy: “Can we say anything more ridiculous? I had only said that the modesty and decency of the sex demanded that she should not be dragged into the midst of the tumult of the elections. »
As for the custom of having women vote, it is right to destroy it.
Even if he fiercely defends himself from what his adversary affirms, posterity retains only the first affirmation which, taken out of context, will end up earning him the label of misogynist. In our opinion, this extract reported in detail by The Minervaon February 3, aims to demonstrate the bad faith of the constitutional Cuvillier, suspected of having taken his wife to vote in 1832 to extend the poll, and this, on uncertain qualifications. Hence Papineau’s words “to make women vote” and “to see them hanging around hustings “.
The House is continuing its work on the bill relating to the election of deputies and sanctioned it on March 18, 1834. Henceforth, “no girl, woman or widow could vote”. As noted by Denyse Baillargeon and Bettina Bradbury, the Patriote Party did indeed take women’s right to vote away in 1834. While political parties were polarizing and the interpretation of laws was difficult, MPs sought solutions. They may also have been influenced by an electoral reform adopted in England in 1832. The Great Reform Act defines an elector as a male person. This marks the formal exclusion of women even though in practice they rarely voted.
However, the bill of 1834 was rejected by King William IV two years later and Lower Canadian deputies were informed on February 7, 1837. The friend of the people notes that this cancellation “gives women the right to vote in elections again”. Women are aware of this, as demonstrated by the by-election that takes place in July in the Lower Town of Quebec. Two women showed up to vote, but the reporting officer refused to admit them.
Finally, the withdrawal
After the rebellions, the union of Upper and Lower Canada and a new constitution, the political situation changed a lot. The electoral behavior of women too. Nathalie Picard noted, for the district of Montreal, only a fragmentary number of votes in 1841, in 1842 and in 1844. This apparent change is difficult to explain.
Be that as it may, Louis-Hippolyte La Fontaine presented a bill to modify the electoral laws in 1849. In the debates on this bill, it was above all a question of reporting officers. It is complete silence on women, which prevents us from following the thinking of deputies on the subject.
The sanction of bill on the elections in May marks the official loss, for women, of their right to vote. Does the lack of public reaction on their part mean that the reform has left them indifferent? Some, like former deputy Joseph-Guillaume Barthe, deplore it. In his book published in 1855, he wrote: “I have seen, in my time, patriotic women brave the storms of hustings, to accomplish, without flinching before the riot, what they were right to regard as the first of their duties. We were all the more pleasantly elected then! Moreover, between 1844 and 1858, the deputies tightened the practice of voting, notably excluding judges, court clerks and officials, and land agents.
Women did not vote in Lower Canada: this is a myth that had to be debunked. On the contrary, they began to do so at the same time as the men, from the first elections. Let us remember the names of Marguerite Cardinal, Agathe Gagnon or Charlotte Masse for the record. Withdrawn in the middle of the XIXand century, this fundamental right will only be recovered by women after a long eclipse of 91 years, in 1940.
To propose a text or to make comments and suggestions, write to Dave Noël at [email protected].