The Nineteenth Amendment was specifically intended to extend suffrage to women. It was proposed on June 4, 1919 and ratified on August 18, 1920.
The Nineteenth Amendment was the culmination of the work of many activists in favor of women's suffrage. One such group called the Silent Sentinels protested in front of the White House for 18 months starting in 1917 to raise awareness of the issue.
On January 9, 1918, President Woodrow Wilson announced his support of the amendment. The next day, the House of Representatives narrowly passed the amendment but the Senate refused to even debate it until October. When the Senate voted on the amendment in October, it failed by three votes.[1]
In response, the National Woman's Party urged citizens to vote against anti-suffrage senators up for election in the fall of 1918. After the 1918 election, most members of Congress were pro-suffrage. On May 21, 1919, the House of Representatives passed the amendment by a vote of 304 to 89, and 2 weeks later on June 4, the Senate finally followed, where the amendment passed by a vote of 56 to 25.[2]
It was ratified on August 18, 1920, upon its ratification by Tennessee, the thirty-sixth state to do so. Secretary of State Bainbridge Colby certified the ratification on August 26, 1920.
On February 27, 1922, a challenge to the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment was rebuffed by the Supreme Court of the United States in Leser v. Garnett, 258 U.S. 130 (1922).
The Congress proposed the Nineteenth Amendment on June 4, 1919.[3] The following states ratified the amendment:
1. Illinois (June 10, 1919, reaffirmed on June 17, 1919)
2. Michigan (June 10, 1919)
3. Wisconsin (June 10, 1919)
4. Kansas (June 16, 1919)
5. New York (June 16, 1919)
6. Ohio (June 16, 1919)
7. Pennsylvania (June 24, 1919)
8. Massachusetts (June 25, 1919)
9. Texas (June 28, 1919)
10. Iowa (July 2, 1919)[4]
11. Missouri (July 3, 1919)
12. Arkansas (July 28, 1919)
13. Montana (August 2, 1919)[4]
14. Nebraska (August 2, 1919)
15. Minnesota (September 8, 1919)
16. New Hampshire (September 10, 1919)[4]
17. Utah (October 2, 1919)
18. California (November 1, 1919)
19. Maine (November 5, 1919)
20. North Dakota (December 1, 1919)
21. South Dakota (December 4, 1919)
22. Colorado (December 15, 1919)[4]
23. Kentucky (January 6, 1920)
24. Rhode Island (January 6, 1920)
25. Oregon (January 13, 1920)
26. Indiana (January 16, 1920)
27. Wyoming (January 27, 1920)
28. Nevada (February 7, 1920)
29. New Jersey (February 9, 1920)
30. Idaho (February 11, 1920)
31. Arizona (February 12, 1920)
32. New Mexico (February 21, 1920)
33. Oklahoma (February 28, 1920)
34. West Virginia (March 10, 1920, confirmed on September 21, 1920)
35. Washington (March 22, 1920)
36. Tennessee (August 18, 1920)
Ratification was completed on August 18, 1920. The amendment was subsequently ratified by the following states:
1. Connecticut (September 14, 1920, reaffirmed on September 21, 1920)
2. Vermont (February 8, 1921)
3. Delaware (March 6, 1923, after being rejected on June 2, 1920)
4. Maryland (March 29, 1941 after being rejected on February 24, 1920; not certified until February 25, 1958)
5. Virginia (February 21, 1952, after being rejected on February 12, 1920)
6. Alabama (September 8, 1953, after being rejected on September 22, 1919)
7. Florida (May 13, 1969)[5]
8. South Carolina (July 1, 1969, after being rejected on January 28, 1920; not certified until August 22, 1973)
9. Georgia (February 20, 1970, after being rejected on July 24, 1919)
10. Louisiana (June 11, 1970, after being rejected on July 1, 1920)
11. North Carolina (May 6, 1971)
12. Mississippi (March 22, 1984, after being rejected on March 29, 1920)
The 19th Amendment - Voting Equality For Women
What Was the 19th Amendment?
The 19th Amendment is a simply worded Article to the U.S. Constitution. As Article XIX it reads that voting rights of citizens of the United States shall not be denied on the basis of sex. The House of Representatives passed the 19th amendment in 1919 by a vote of 304 to 90. The Senate passed the amendment 56 to 25. The required thirty-six states finally ratified the article on August 18, 1920.Women had lobbied for their voting rights, or suffrage, for many years before this amendment came into being. Many historians place the beginning of the women's suffrage movement in July of 1848 in Seneca Falls, New York. It was there that Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott organized the first convention regarding women's rights and the woman's right to vote. Many of the backers of suffrage movement were also abolitionist sympathizers. Many abolitionists promoted universal voting rights for blacks and whites. Abolitionists saw success as the 15th amendment of 1870 granted voting rights to black men was passed. It was a natural connection then, for anti-slavery persons to be involved in women's voting rights. Frederick Douglass, the great black abolitionist leader, attended the Seneca Falls convention. In an editorial in the North Star, Douglass wrote that he saw absolutely "no reason" to withhold the right to vote from women. Later, in 1877, Douglass also signed a petition to the U.S. Congress in regards to women's suffrage.
In 1869, well-known suffragists, Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton formed the National Woman Suffrage Association, or NWSA. In 1871, a petition signed by Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cody and many other suffragists was sent to Congress asking that voting rights be given to women. The petition also asked that women be given the right to speak in Congress. It was obviously not granted at that time.
Following the Civil War, the suffragist movement was divided due to differences in ideology. Two separate organizations pursued voting rights for women. The NWSA was more aggressive in their attempts to win suffrage. Lucy Stone, Julia Ward Howe and Thomas Wentworth Higginson did not agree with this more militant attitude. They formed a separate organization, the American Woman Suffrage Association, or AWSA in November 1869. These two groups pursued the woman's right to vote separately until 1890, when the two groups joined together and formed the NAWSA or National American Woman Suffrage Association. Elizabeth Stanton was the new organization's president. In 1919, this group later changed and became the still existing League of Women Voters.
Opposition to women's suffrage came from women, as well. Some women believed the political process was demeaning to their roles as wives and mothers. In the state of New York, for example, there was a Women Voters Anti-Suffrage Party that circulated a petition against women's suffrage in 1918.
At the same time, pro-suffragists were pushing that President Woodrow Wilson support the proposed amendment. The suffragists held vigils outside the White House. They carried banners attacking Woodrow Wilson and compared him to the leader of World War I Germany, Kaiser Wilhem II. These vitriolic demonstrations often ended in arrests and public violence. Some women would suffer arrest in promoting the suffragist cause. In 1872, Susan B. Anthony registered and voted in Rochester, New York. She was arrested, convicted and fined $100. Susan B. Anthony never paid the fine and in 1874 petitioned the United States Congress to release from the fine. She argued that the conviction was unjust.
Several states promoted suffrage for women. New York state passed a women's voting law in 1917. In 1918, President Woodrow Wilson began to support the need for a constitutional amendment to which he had previously been opposed. When ratification by the states was begun on June 4, 1919 it only took six days for Illinois, Michigan and Wisconsin to all ratify the amendment. Kansas, New York and Ohio followed on June 16, 1919. The last required 36th state to ratify was Tennessee, who barely ratified the amendment on August 18, 1920. The Tennessee vote to ratify hinged on one vote, the vote of a 24-year-old state legislator by the name of Harry Burn. He had originally voted against ratification. He changed his vote after his mother urged him to do so. Even after his vote, anti-suffrage rallies were held and anti-suffrage state legislators left the state so that a legislative quorum could not achieved. The Tennessee ratification was achieved and the required 36 states met the constitutional requirement.
The remaining twelve states of the Union took over sixty years to add their ratifications of the 19th amendment. Ten of these states originally had rejected ratifying the amendment. Mississippi was the last state of the 48 states to ratify the amendment when it did so on March 22, 1984.
