19th amendment definition us history

19th amendment definition us history

The Significance of the 19th Amendment in U.S. History

1. Introduction to the 19th Amendment

This is a story of triumph and defeat for women in their struggle for the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. In 1848, the first major step was taken. A convention which met in Seneca Falls, New York for the women’s rights movement formulated a number of demands – one of which was the right of a woman to “participation in religions, educational, industrial, and political fields”. The first venturers for a new freedom were few in number. Tens of thousands followed. Some were well-educated and influential women. Many were considered impolite enough to raise their ambitions above the “trivial round, the common task”. Some were told to go back to the kitchen to tend the baby, to beat eggs, or to gossip with their neighbors about other women’s miserable cooking and housekeeping. Women had no reason to argue. If labor organizations for protection were what was needed, they upheld the Constitution and requested a protective amendment.

The 19th Amendment to the Constitution was a landmark in the struggle for women’s equality in the United States. The Constitution, in every other instance, had been a grantor of rights. It was a stumbling block for women to get the rights through the Constitution. They couldn’t vote for President, for Representative or Senator, for Governor, state Senator, state Representative, or for Mayor because they were women. As a result, they were a dominant political minority, not a political majority. They had no protective legislation because they could show no need for it. They were given boots and shoes with no feeling, and many of their employers were hoist with their own petard. Women showed some agitation for the amendment for over a half a century. “All Men and all Women are created equal” was a principle to them 100 years ago.

2. Historical Context and Women’s Suffrage Movement

At the turn of the 20th century, the vast majority of the women of the United States were excluded from the political process. In 1918, Woodrow Wilson, in asking for a Congressional resolution on votes for women, suggested that “While the authority of the United States upon the chief matter of the resolution is clear and express, there is no specific grant of power in the Constitution to the United States to regulate the suffrage; and as a reservation of the suffrage to the several states is expressed in the Constitution, a concurrent power in this matter is, in strictness, not in the Congress of the United States.” The strongholds of the votes for women movement, at the turn of the century, were in the states of Wyoming, Texas, Colorado, Utah, and Idaho. Women had already achieved full suffrage in Wyoming, Utah, and Colorado. At the national level, modern advocates of the women’s suffrage amendment who aligned with the Senate fought for the 19th Amendment. This section puts those battles into the historical context of debates over women’s rights and the 19th amendment, as well as the Senate’s vote on the women’s rights movement.

In 1919, Congress approved the 19th Amendment. It provided that “the rights 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.” The 19th Amendment represented the culmination of many activists’ decades-long campaign for women’s suffrage and had a dramatic impact on the social and political history of the United States. The passage and then the ratification of the amendment advanced “the long battle for the progress of humanity,” as Woodrow Wilson so eloquently phrased it when he declared his support in 1918. But what, exactly, were the implications of the 19th Amendment?

3. Ratification and Impact of the 19th Amendment

The United States had been born in the Declaration of Independence, a document that proclaimed all men were born equal. But what about the women? It was left to the 19th Amendment to the Constitution, approved by Congress on June 4, 1919, and ratified on August 18, 1920, to answer that question, at least concerning the obligations and privileges of voting. The legal status of women in the United States was shaped in part by the English common law, which sought explanations for distinctions between the sexes in nature as well as logic. Women were considered the weaker sex, possessing less physical agility and less complicated brains than men. Custom provided the 19th century woman her proudest title: “The Angel in the House,” a status that was not one of equality. Women thus found it difficult to enter the professions, hold property, and work outside the home.

The 19th Amendment was a high-water mark of the women’s rights movement and gave new impetus to women’s civil and legal rights. The women of 1920 were the daughters, the granddaughters, and even the great-granddaughters of the women of 1848. Their attitudes toward women’s place in society had been shaped by the efforts of these earlier generations to gain access to education, vocational opportunities, and participation in the affairs of church and state. Women had shown their bravery by serving as nurses in the Civil War, but it was not until 1917, and the isolationist time period of World War I, that their force as a group was realized.

4. Challenges and Achievements in the Post-Amendment Era

After the Amendment and prior to the 1965 Voting Rights Act, states continued to create and enforce discriminatory disqualifications that served as barriers to voting by blacks, which also affected the ability of black women to vote. To mitigate the effect of the Amendment on the state voter qualifications and as a practical matter to overcome these state laws, they applied the Fifteenth Amendment’s equal protection enforcement clause to the federal government. Their efforts were bolstered by the federal court. Not only did the federal government prevent the enforcement by the state to determine who voted in federal elections, but in voting rights cases under Section 241, federal courts aggressively interpreted those laws to protect black women’s right to vote in federal elections. After the Great Depression and the post-World War II social reconstruction, nearly a century after the first woman’s suffrage movement began, a second era of woman suffrage developed.

The 19th Amendment marked the beginning, not the end, of the quest by our nation for true political equality for women. In shaping constitutional doctrine, legal professionals, activists, and elected officials have confronted a number of challenging issues and have developed a variety of strategies to try to bring that equality about and to overcome the barriers that have impeded women’s full enjoyment of the right to vote. They deserve our continued respect and attention as we carefully think through the normative issues that surround the development and implementation of that doctrine today.

5. Legacy and Continued Relevance of the 19th Amendment

The 19th Amendment – added to the Constitution on Aug. 26, 1920 – was the climactic act of a determined and costly 72-year struggle by succeeding generations of Americans. It was their commitment, sacrifice and work that accomplished – against great odds – the amendment’s ratification. We must honor them for their individual and collective commitment to expand our participatory democracy, as well as the rights and benefits that flow from the process. The 250,000 suffragists from around the country, led by some of the most dedicated and courageous women in U.S. history, were indeed responsible for this amendment, including the right to vote in elections, which is the foundation for other very important rights in our democratic system – the right to participate in our society on an equal footing, the right to be treated fairly and the right to secure additional rights that are for the benefit of the entire society.

The 19th Amendment’s role in promoting the expansion of democracy in the U.S.A. – as well as in bringing newer Americans into the mosaic of U.S. society within the mainstream political process – has not lost, nor should it lose, its significance. In preparing for the centennial observance of the amendment, there has been a rekindled interest in reminding both citizens and those entrusted with governing that to ensure that an open, fair and democratic society, there is never finality to our purpose. They are, and will always be, new challenges to our democratic way of life that will test the will and commitment of our citizens – women and men. As the generation responsible for the sacrifices to secure the 19th amendment has either waned in numbers or become ignored in history, the purpose of this statement is to introduce them to a new generation.