Omar Bennett
The 19th Amendment to the US Constitution, passed in 1920, granted women the right to vote. This was the culmination of a long and arduous struggle by women's suffrage supporters, which included lecturing, writing, marching, lobbying, and civil disobedience. While the US Constitution, adopted in 1789, did not initially define the boundaries of suffrage, most states adopted constitutions that denied voting rights to women after 1776. The first women's suffrage amendment was introduced in Congress in 1878, but it wasn't until 1919 that an amendment finally passed in the House of Representatives and the Senate. This amendment asserted that the right to vote could not be denied or abridged by the US or any state based on sex. The complex history of women's suffrage in the US reveals the efforts of women and their allies to secure political and professional equality, both at the state and national levels, and their fight against obstacles and ideologies that excluded them from the political sphere.
| Characteristics | Values |
|---|---|
| Women's right to vote | Granted by the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution in 1920 |
| Women's political status | Compared to slaves by Southern congressman Thomas Gilmer in 1843 |
| Women's suffrage movement | Led by Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton |
| Women's voting bloc | Did not fully materialize until decades after the 19th Amendment |
| Women's right to hold office | Varies by state, with some constitutions limiting officeholding to men |
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What You'll Learn
The 19th Amendment (1920) granted women the right to vote
The 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, ratified in 1920, was a significant milestone in the long and arduous struggle for women's suffrage in the country. The amendment states, "The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex." This amendment made it illegal to deny any citizen the right to vote based on their gender and effectively granted women the right to vote.
The campaign for women's suffrage in the United States had begun decades earlier, with women organizing, lecturing, writing, marching, lobbying, and even practicing civil disobedience to achieve what many considered a radical change to the Constitution. The National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA), formed in 1890, played a pivotal role in this movement. By the start of the 20th century, the momentum for women's suffrage had renewed, and more states began extending voting rights to women. Colorado, Wyoming, Utah, and Idaho amended their state constitutions to grant women the right to vote.
In 1916, the National Women's Party (NWP) emerged with more militant and attention-grabbing tactics, including a two-and-a-half-year protest outside the White House involving over 2,000 women. The United States' entry into World War I in 1917 also shifted public opinion in favour of women's suffrage, as NAWSA argued that women should be rewarded with the right to vote for their patriotic wartime service. These efforts culminated in the passage of the 19th Amendment, which finally granted women across the nation the right to vote.
However, it is important to note that despite the amendment, many women, particularly women of colour and those from other racial and ethnic minority groups, continued to face discrimination and voter suppression for decades after its ratification. It was not until the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 that crucial protections were afforded to Black, Indigenous, and Women of Color (BIWOC) voters, ensuring their right to vote was protected regardless of race or ethnicity.
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Women's advocacy for political and professional equality
The US Constitution, in its final edited form, does not explicitly include women. However, in the debates leading up to it, the delegates used the word "persons" instead of "men", indicating that they intended for women to be included. This shift from "men" to "persons" meant there was no longer a clear reason to exclude women.
Despite this, women's advocacy for political and professional equality has been a long and arduous journey. The 19th Amendment, which finally granted women's suffrage in 1920, understandably looms large in the history of women in the United States. Generations of women and their allies fought hard to achieve this milestone, but this federal achievement has overshadowed the rich and complex story of women's rights at the state level.
Before the 1860s, only a handful of women held public office. Officeholding became a primary goal of the women's movement after the Civil War. In 1866, prominent suffragist Elizabeth Cady Stanton ran for Congress in New York, marking an early symbolic move. In 1869, three women were appointed as justices of the peace in Wyoming, the first place to fully enfranchise women citizens. However, in some states like Massachusetts, women were deemed ineligible to hold any public offices, as the state's highest court ruled that women's rights were limited to those envisioned by the framers of the state's constitution.
State constitutions played a significant role in shaping women's advocacy for equality. Some state constitutions contained language that explicitly limited officeholding to white men, while others created indirect barriers by restricting officeholding to voters. Still, others had no gender-related rules, allowing women to pursue diverse strategies to obtain offices.
Today, various organizations are dedicated to promoting gender equality and advancing women's political and professional status. These include international organizations like Womankind Worldwide, which works in partnership with women's rights organizations and movements in various countries, advocating for governments to promote and protect women's rights. Another organization, Gender at Work, is an international feminist knowledge network that aims to build inclusive cultures and end discrimination against women. They collaborate with researchers and activists worldwide to develop innovative approaches to address societal discriminatory norms. Additionally, organizations like Equality Now and Amnesty International use legal advocacy to protect and promote the human rights of women and girls, campaigning for their effective participation in the political process and fighting for their sexual and reproductive rights.
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Women's right to hold public office
The history of women's right to hold public office in the United States is a complex and often overlooked aspect of the women's movement. While the 19th Amendment, which granted women's suffrage in 1920, is a significant milestone, it is important to recognise the efforts made at the state level and the various obstacles women faced in their pursuit of political and professional equality.
In the mid-19th century, as the women's movement gained momentum, state constitutions varied in their approach to officeholder eligibility. Some explicitly limited officeholding to white men, while others created indirect barriers by restricting it to voters. However, a few offered no gender-related restrictions, allowing women to pursue diverse strategies to obtain public offices. Despite these opportunities, it was only after the Civil War that officeholding became a central goal of the women's movement.
One notable example is Elizabeth Cady Stanton, a prominent suffragist who ran for Congress in New York in 1866. Although she lost the election, her campaign highlighted the legal ambiguity surrounding women's eligibility to hold office. In her words, "Although, by the constitution of the state of New York, a woman is denied the elective franchise, yet she is eligible to hold office."
The divergent outcomes in different states further emphasised the complexity of the issue. In Wyoming, which became the first territory to fully enfranchise women citizens in 1869, three women were appointed as justices of the peace. In contrast, the highest court in Massachusetts ruled that women were ineligible to hold public offices enumerated in the state's constitution, despite the absence of explicit exclusionary provisions.
As women's suffrage spread across the country in the 1910s, they gained access to a wider range of public offices. Several states enacted suffrage amendments that explicitly guaranteed the right to hold office. However, even after the 19th Amendment removed gender as a barrier to voting in 1920, some states continued to impose restrictions on women's ability to hold public office. For instance, in 1921, the Attorney General of Maryland, Alexander Armstrong Jr., interpreted the masculine pronoun in laws creating public offices as excluding women from those positions.
The persistent limitations on women's political rights motivated the drafting of the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) in 1921, which aimed to ensure women's status as full rights-bearing citizens. Despite this, the struggle for equal representation in public office continued, with women facing various legal and societal challenges.
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The Missouri Compromise and the Three-Fifths Clause
The Three-Fifths Clause, also known as the Three-Fifths Compromise, was an agreement reached during the 1787 United States Constitutional Convention. The compromise counted three-fifths of each state's slave population toward that state's total population. This population figure was used for three key purposes: determining the number of seats in the House of Representatives, allocating electoral votes to each state, and calculating the amount of money states would pay in taxes. The Three-Fifths Compromise aimed to resolve the dispute between slave-holding states, which wanted their entire population to be counted, and free states, which sought to exclude the counting of slave populations. This compromise effectively gave Southern states with large slave populations more power in the House of Representatives relative to the Northern states.
The Three-Fifths Compromise was part of Article 1, Section 2, Clause 3 of the United States Constitution, which stated: "Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to Service for a Term of Years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three-fifths of all other Persons." This clause was later superseded and explicitly repealed by Section 2 of the Fourteenth Amendment in 1868.
The Missouri Compromise, on the other hand, was a piece of legislation passed in 1820. It admitted Missouri as a slave state and Maine as a non-slave state simultaneously, thus preserving the balance between slave and free states in the nation. The Compromise also included a provision that prohibited slavery above the 36° 30' latitude line in the remainder of the Louisiana Territory. This provision was in place for 34 years until it was repealed by the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854.
Interestingly, the Missouri Compromise debates in 1820 brought attention to the inclusion of women in the Constitution. Kentucky Senator Richard M. Johnson defended the Three-Fifths Clause, arguing that slaves, women, and minors were all represented, even though they could not vote. In 1843, Southern congressman Thomas Gilmer elaborated on this argument, stating that each state is responsible for the care and protection of its entire population, and its power should be proportional to that responsibility. This perspective highlighted the idea that representation goes beyond just those who have the right to vote.
In summary, the Three-Fifths Clause and the Missouri Compromise were significant moments in American history that addressed the complexities of slavery, representation, and power dynamics between states. The Three-Fifths Clause aimed to balance the interests of slave-holding and free states, while the Missouri Compromise maintained the balance between slave and free states in the nation. Additionally, the debates surrounding the Missouri Compromise shed light on the interpretation of the Constitution's inclusion of women and their representation.
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The denial of women's right to vote
The campaign for women's suffrage was long and difficult, and it faced fierce resistance. Opponents heckled, jailed, and sometimes physically abused supporters of women's suffrage. Despite these challenges, women and their allies persisted, using various strategies to achieve their goal. They organized, petitioned, picketed, lectured, wrote, marched, lobbied, and practiced civil disobedience.
The first state to grant women the right to vote was Wyoming in 1869, followed by Utah in 1870, Colorado in 1893, Idaho in 1896, Washington in 1910, California in 1911, and Oregon and Arizona in 1912. In 1916, Alice Paul formed the National Woman's Party (NWP), a group focused on the passage of a national suffrage amendment. Finally, on August 18, 1920, the 19th Amendment to the United States Constitution was ratified, granting women the right to vote.
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Frequently asked questions
The US Constitution, adopted in 1789, left the boundaries of suffrage undefined. While women had the right to vote in several of the pre-revolutionary colonies in what would become the United States, after 1776, with the exception of New Jersey, all states adopted constitutions that denied voting rights to women. New Jersey's constitution initially granted suffrage to property-holding residents, including single and married women, but the state rescinded women's voting rights in 1807 and did not restore them until New Jersey ratified the Nineteenth Amendment in 1920. The 19th Amendment, passed in 1920, granted women the right to vote.
The 19th Amendment to the United States Constitution prohibits the United States and its states from denying the right to vote to citizens of the United States on the basis of sex, in effect recognizing the right of women to vote. The amendment was the culmination of a decades-long movement for women's suffrage in the United States, at both the state and national levels, and was part of the worldwide movement towards women's suffrage and part of the wider women's rights movement.
The women's rights movement was a decades-long movement for women's suffrage in the United States, at both the state and national levels. Beginning in the mid-19th century, several generations of women's suffrage supporters lectured, wrote, marched, lobbied, and practiced civil disobedience to achieve what many Americans considered a radical change of the Constitution. The first women's suffrage amendment was introduced in Congress in 1878.
