No taxation without representation!
Apparently this did not apply to women? True stories of four women who protested against paying taxes--losing houses, cows and baby cradles--when they didn't have a voice in their representation.
On July 4th, 1776 the founding fathers believed that “no taxation without representation” was a grand rallying cry and grounds for revolution. But then the ladies agreed with them and adopted it as their own rallying cry and reason for why they—half of humanity in an alleged democracy—should have the vote. After all, they paid taxes!
Protesting tax bills was one way the Suffs called attention to their cause. Here are four examples of 19th century ladies sticking to their principles—and America’s principles—and losing their cows and baby cradles over it.
Lucy Stone refused to pay taxes in 1858
She wrote this very polite letter to the tax collector:
Enclosed I return my tax bill, without paying it. My reason for doing so is that women suffer taxation and yet have no representation, which is not only unjust to one half of the adult population, but is contrary to our theory of government. For years some women have been paying their taxes under protest but still taxes are imposed and representation is not granted. The only course now left us is to refuse to pay the tax. We know well what the immediate result of this refusal must be.
Then the tax collector came and seized her baby’s cradle.
Dr. Harriot K. Hunt made tax protests a yearly thing
Dr. Harriot K. Hunt, a Boston Physician and “woman of wealth and position” wrote a protest letter every year. You can read many of them here, but here is one excerpt from 1858 in which she (for reasons unbeknownst to me) writes of herself in the third person:
Harriot K. Hunt, physician, a native and permanent resident of the City of Boston, and for many years a tax payer therein, in making payment of her city taxes for the coming year, begs leave to protest against the injustice and inequality of levying taxes upon women, and at the same time refusing them any voice or vote in the imposition and expenditure of the same. The only classes of male persons, required to pay taxes, and not at the same time allowed the privilege of voting, are aliens and minors.
Abbey Kelly Foster refused to pay taxes in the 1870s
She was one of the most famous abolitionist speakers and one of the first women who dared to lecture about women’s rights. When she refused to pay her taxes the city of Worcester forced the sale of her house—which had been a stop on the Underground Railroad—and her lands. But her friends bought it back for her. Read more here.
The Smith Sisters refused to pay taxes in 1873
The Smith Sisters of Glastonbury Connecticut drew fame for their ongoing feud with the tax collector. Julia and Abby, aged 81 and 76, had been devoted abolitionists and turned their attentions to women’s rights after slavery had been abolished. When the tax collector levied and unfair assessment, they fought back. He replied by seizing their cows. And that was just the beginning.
The full story is here and it’s wild.
From Abby’s speech at the town meeting:
The motto of our government is ‘proclaim liberty to all the inhabitants of the land,’ and here, where liberty is so highly extolled and glorified by every man in it, one-half of the inhabitants are not put under her laws, but are ruled over by the other half, who can take all they possess. How is liberty pleased with such worship? [. . . .] All we ask of the town is not to rule over them as they rule over us, but to be on an equality with them.
Why is equality too much to ask?
This is great history that we didn't learn in school! Thanks for highlighting these women.