Edward M. Lee

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Not to be confused with Edward Merwin Lee.

Edward M. Lee was an American Union brevet brigadier general during the period of the American Civil War. He received his appointment as brevet brigadier general dated to March 13, 1865.[1] He is also known as an early supporter for women's suffrage.[2]

In 1867, as a member of the Connecticut legislature, Lee introduced a women's suffrage amendment.[3] After the war, Ulysses S. Grant appointed John Allen Campbell as the first governor of Wyoming and Edward M. Lee as the state's first secretary, the second-highest ranking territorial officer.[4] The suffrage bill that Lee helped introduce also granted married women control of their separate property, permitted married women to work in trade or businesses and control their own earnings, stated that a mortgage was not binding to a wife unless she freely and voluntarily signed it, and granted equal pay for equally qualified women teachers.[5] Regarding Wyoming becoming the first territory or state to enshrine in law that women should be given the right to vote, Lee wrote: "Once, during the session, amid the greatest hilarity, and after the presentation of various funny amendments and in the full expectation of a gubernatorial veto, an act was passed Enfranchising the Women of Wyoming. The bill, however, was approved, became a law, and the youngest territory placed in the van of progress... How strange that a movement destined to purify the muddy pool of politics... should have originated in a joke... All honor to them, say we, to Wyoming's first legislature!" Susan B. Anthony proclaimed, "Wyoming is the first place on God's green earth which could consistently claim to be the land of the Free!"[6] Edward M. Lee had championed this cause for years, arguing that it was unfair for his mother to be denied a privilege now granted to African-American males.[7]

See also[]

References[]

  1. ^ The Photographic History of the Civil War: Three Volumes in One. New York: Random House Value Publishing, Inc. 1983. p. 314. 0-517-20155-0.
  2. ^ "Wyoming grants women the right to vote". Retrieved 2020-02-11.
  3. ^ Taft Alfred Larson (1977). Wyoming: A Bicentennial History. New York: W. W. Norton and Company, Inc. p. 79.
  4. ^ Adam Arenson and Andrew R. Graybill, ed. (2015). Civil War Wests: Testing the Limits of the United States. University of California Press. p. 212. 978-0-520-28378-7.
  5. ^ Shirley W. Belleranti. "Vote of Confidence". Retrieved 2020-02-11.
  6. ^ "Woman Suffrage". Retrieved 2020-02-11.
  7. ^ "Wyoming grants women the right to vote". Retrieved 2020-02-11.


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