Malcolm Rivera
When the US Constitution was written in 1789, it did not establish any specific voting rights. Instead, it gave individual states the power to regulate voting laws. As a result, most states limited voting rights to white male landowners, with some states also employing religious tests to ensure that only Christian men could vote. This excluded not only free African-Americans but also lower-class whites, women, and Native Americans. Over time, voting rights expanded to include all men, regardless of property ownership, and later, to include women and people of colour. However, despite these expansions, challenges to voting rights have persisted, with various groups facing barriers to voting even into the 21st century.
| Characteristics | Values |
|---|---|
| Year | Late 1700s |
| Who could vote | White male landowners |
| Who couldn't vote | Free African-Americans, lower-class whites, women, Native Americans, citizens between the ages of 18 and 21 |
| States' power | Could set voting requirements |
| Property requirements | Varies by state |
| Other requirements | Some states employed religious tests to ensure only Christian men could vote |
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What You'll Learn
- The Fifteenth Amendment (1870) granted all men the right to vote, regardless of race
- The Fourteenth Amendment (1868) granted citizenship to all Americans, but not the ability to vote
- The Nineteenth Amendment (1920) gave women the right to vote
- The Twenty-Sixth Amendment (1971) states that citizens aged 18 or older cannot be denied the right to vote
- The Voting Rights Act (1965) reinforced the Fifteenth Amendment by declaring that racial identity should not impact voting rights
The Fifteenth Amendment (1870) granted all men the right to vote, regardless of race
When the U.S. Constitution was made effective in 1789, it made no federal distinctions regarding voter eligibility. The intention was to have each new state determine the specific tenets of voter eligibility as they entered the Union. The most common requirement for voter eligibility was that each prospective voter had to be a white male who owned property of a certain dollar value. This excluded free African Americans and lower-class whites from voting.
The Fifteenth Amendment was a remarkable accomplishment, given that slavery was such a dominant institution before the Civil War. However, it was just another step in the struggle for equality, and it would take over a century before African Americans could begin to participate fully in American public and civic life. African Americans exercised the right to vote and held office in many Southern states through the 1880s. However, in the early 1890s, steps were taken to ensure "white supremacy". Literacy tests for the vote, grandfather clauses, and other devices to disenfranchise African Americans were written into the laws of former Confederate states.
The struggle for ratification was particularly close in Indiana and Ohio, which voted to ratify in May 1869 and January 1870, respectively. New York, which had ratified on April 14, 1869, tried to revoke its ratification on January 5, 1870. However, in February 1870, Georgia, Iowa, Nebraska, and Texas ratified the amendment, bringing the total number of ratifying states to twenty-nine—one more than the required twenty-eight ratifications from the thirty-seven states.
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The Fourteenth Amendment (1868) granted citizenship to all Americans, but not the ability to vote
The right to vote in the United States was originally restricted to white male landowners. State legislatures also employed religious tests to ensure that only Christian men could vote.
The Fourteenth Amendment, passed by Congress on June 13, 1866, and ratified on July 9, 1868, granted citizenship to all Americans born or naturalized in the country, including formerly enslaved people. However, it did not grant them the right to vote. The Citizenship Clause overruled the Supreme Court's Dred Scott decision, which stated that African Americans could not become citizens. The Fourteenth Amendment was the first of three "Reconstruction Amendments" aimed at guaranteeing equal civil and legal rights to Black citizens.
The Fourteenth Amendment's primary author, Congressman John A. Bingham of Ohio, intended for the amendment to nationalize the Bill of Rights by making it binding on the states. The amendment extended liberties and rights granted by the Bill of Rights to formerly enslaved people. It also included a provision stating that "nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws." This provision applied to both the federal and state governments.
Despite the Fourteenth Amendment's adoption, Black voters were still systematically turned away from polling places in many states. It would take another two years, with the passage of the Fifteenth Amendment in 1870, for African American men to be granted the right to vote. This amendment prohibited the denial of the right to vote based on "race, color, or previous condition of servitude."
The struggle for equal voting rights continued well into the 20th century, with women finally securing the right to vote with the ratification of the 19th Amendment in 1920.
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The Nineteenth Amendment (1920) gave women the right to vote
When the U.S. Constitution was made effective in 1789, it made no federal distinctions regarding voter eligibility. However, the intention was to allow each new state to determine the specific criteria for voter eligibility upon joining the Union. Consequently, the most common requirement for voter eligibility was that each prospective voter had to be a white male landowner of a certain property value. This exclusionary practice not only disenfranchised free African Americans but also lower-class white men.
The Nineteenth Amendment (1920) to the United States Constitution was a significant milestone in the long struggle for women's suffrage. It legally guarantees American women the right to vote, marking the culmination of a decades-long movement for women's suffrage at both the state and national levels. The journey towards achieving this amendment was challenging and protracted, spanning several generations of women who lectured, wrote, marched, lobbied, and practised civil disobedience to bring about what many Americans considered a radical change to the Constitution.
The campaign for women's suffrage in the United States began as early as the mid-19th century, with the Seneca Falls convention in 1848 adopting the Declaration of Sentiments, which called for equality between the sexes and included a resolution urging women to secure the vote. Despite facing fierce resistance, including heckling, imprisonment, and physical abuse, women's suffrage supporters persevered in their quest for voting rights.
The turning point came with the United States' entry into World War I in 1917, which helped shift public opinion in favour of women's suffrage. The National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA), led by Carrie Chapman Catt, argued that women deserved the right to vote as recognition of their patriotic wartime service. This shift in public sentiment influenced President Woodrow Wilson to announce his support for the suffrage amendment in 1918.
The amendment was passed by Congress on June 4, 1919, and ratified on August 18, 1920, when Tennessee became the 36th state to approve it. The Nineteenth Amendment not only changed the face of the American electorate forever but also symbolised a significant step forward in the broader women's rights movement. However, it is important to note that the amendment did not ensure the immediate inclusion of all women. In practice, it primarily benefited white women, while women of colour, including Black, Indigenous, Asian American, and Hispanic American women, continued to face discrimination and voter suppression for several more decades.
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The Twenty-Sixth Amendment (1971) states that citizens aged 18 or older cannot be denied the right to vote
The Twenty-Sixth Amendment, passed in 1971, was a landmark moment in the history of voting rights in the United States. Before this amendment, the right to vote was restricted to a narrow subset of citizens—primarily white male landowners. The Twenty-Sixth Amendment changed this by stating that citizens of the United States aged 18 or older cannot be denied the right to vote based on age. This amendment standardised the minimum voting age across all states, ensuring that young adults were no longer excluded from the democratic process.
The road to achieving this amendment was not without its challenges. For much of the nation's early history, voting rights were determined by individual states, resulting in unfair voting practices that excluded many groups, including women, African Americans, Native Americans, and those without property ownership. Even as barriers to voting began to recede, some states erected new ones, such as poll taxes and literacy tests, specifically targeting African American men and other marginalised communities.
The push to lower the voting age from 21 to 18 gained momentum during the 1960s, fuelled in part by the military draft for the Vietnam War. Young men as young as 18 were being conscripted to serve in the armed forces and risk their lives for their nation, yet they lacked the political voice to influence this decision. Despite opposition from some who questioned the maturity and responsibility of 18-year-olds, the movement to lower the voting age gained support from various public officials and activists.
The Twenty-Sixth Amendment was proposed by Congress on March 23, 1971, and quickly ratified by three-fourths of the states by July 1, 1971. This amendment not only standardised the minimum voting age but also ensured that states could no longer deny the right to vote based on age. The speed of its passage and ratification reflected the urgency and importance placed on ensuring that young adults had a say in the democratic processes that affected their lives.
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The Voting Rights Act (1965) reinforced the Fifteenth Amendment by declaring that racial identity should not impact voting rights
The right to vote in the United States was initially granted to a narrow subset of society — white male landowners. While the US Constitution, which came into effect in 1789, did not make any federal distinctions regarding voter eligibility, it also did not explicitly grant the right to vote to all citizens. Instead, it left it up to the individual states to determine the specific criteria for voter eligibility. As a result, state legislatures generally restricted voting rights to white males who owned property, and some states even required voters to be Christian.
Despite the passage of the Fifteenth Amendment in 1870, which granted all American men the right to vote regardless of "race, colour, or previous condition of servitude", racial discrimination in voting persisted. Southern states enacted Jim Crow laws and amended their constitutions to impose various voting restrictions, including literacy tests, poll taxes, and property-ownership requirements, which disproportionately impacted African Americans.
The Voting Rights Act of 1965 was a landmark piece of federal legislation that sought to address this issue by reinforcing the Fifteenth Amendment. Signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson on August 6, 1965, the Act explicitly declared that racial identity should not impact voting rights, in alignment with the Fifteenth Amendment. It aimed to secure the right to vote for racial minorities, particularly in the South, and to undo the political hold of Jim Crow policies and related discriminatory structures nationwide.
The Voting Rights Act of 1965 had an immediate impact, with a quarter of a million new Black voters registered by the end of 1965. It was considered a legislative crown jewel of the civil rights era, and the US Department of Justice regarded it as the most effective federal civil rights legislation ever enacted in the country. The Act was later amended five times to expand its protections and ensure that states followed the Fifteenth Amendment's guarantee that the right to vote could not be denied based on race.
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Frequently asked questions
When the Constitution was written in 1789, it did not establish any specific voting rights. Instead, states were given the power to regulate voting laws. As a result, most states limited voting rights to white male landowners.
John Adams argued that men without property were "too dependent upon other men to have a will of their own" and that they would vote as they were "directed by some man of property".
Yes, in 1821, the state of New York held a constitutional convention that removed property requirements for white male voters. In 1828, the majority of states had removed the property requirement for voting.
The Fifteenth Amendment, passed in 1870, granted the right to vote to all American men regardless of "race, color, or previous condition of servitude".
