Whereas the epithets for the State of Wyoming are the Cowboy State and the Equality State ; Whereas the official State motto of Wyoming is Equal Rights ; Whereas, at the founding of the United States, the inherent right of women to vote and participate in the political process was inhibited; Whereas the contributions of women to the fight for the independence, founding, and rise to prominence of the United States were extensive, vital to those objectives, and worthy of recognition; Whereas, on December 10, 1869, the Wyoming Territory approved the first law in the history of the United States to grant women the right to vote and hold public office; Whereas, in 1869, the Territorial Legislature of the Wyoming Territory also passed legislation formally enabling women to hold property and assuring equal pay for teachers; Whereas the government of the Wyoming Territory was the first government to explicitly acknowledge and affirm the inherent right of women to vote and to hold office; Whereas the Wyoming Territory granted women the right to vote more than 20 years before Wyoming became the 44th State admitted to the Union; Whereas, when Congress invited Wyoming to join the Union and demanded that women’s suffrage be revoked, the Wyoming Legislature said, We will remain out of the Union one hundred years rather than come in without our women ; Whereas, on September 6, 1870, Louisa Gardner Swain became the first woman in the world to cast a ballot after being granted universal suffrage in Wyoming; Whereas, on March 7, 1870, in Laramie, Wyoming, the first jury in the United States to include women was sworn in; Whereas, in 1870, Mary Atkinson served as the first female court bailiff in Laramie, Wyoming; Whereas Esther Hobart Morris was appointed to serve as justice of the peace in February 1870, making her the first woman to serve as a judge in the United States; Whereas, in 1892, the women of Wyoming became the first women to vote in a Presidential election