“If women be voted for, what shall longer hinder them from voting?”
Lavinia Goodell, March 1874
Lavinia Goodell was an avid reader and did not shy away from reading materials with which she disagreed. When that occurred, she would sometimes write a rebuttal piece in order to share her opposing viewpoint with the publication’s readers. She did this in March of 1874, three months before being admitted to practice law. Her target was an article in the Advance, a weekly publication of the Congregational Church, that proclaimed, “Taxation without representation is sometimes right.” In an article published in the Woman’s Journal, Lavinia said this notion was “enough to make a monarchist tear his hair with regret.”
Lavinia then turned the discussion, as she often did, to the right to vote. She noted that in the Middle Ages, “those paying taxes on property had the right of voting for members of Parliament,” which was the body that gave or withheld funds. so it became a principle of English common law “that those protected owed allegiance, and that those taxed should be represented.”
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