The 19th Amendment to the United States Constitution guarantees that no one
shall be denied the right to vote based on gender. Why was this amendment necessary?
How long did it take for it to become part of the Constitution?
Throughout the early 1870s, the National Woman Suffrage Association launched multiple legal
challenges in hopes of gaining the right to vote for women. They argued that women should have this
right based on the 15th Amendment, which states that all citizens should have the right to vote.
The Supreme Court heard three cases on this matter, the most famous being Minor v. Happersett.
Each time they ruled that this amendment only referred to male
citizens. After these defeats, Elizabeth Cady
Stanton and Susan B. Anthony tried a different approach. They authored a constitutional amendment
that was introduced in the Senate by Aaron Sargent, a senator from California who was a
strong advocate of women s suffrage. He formally introduced the measure in January of 1878.
The Senate made no effort to act on the proposal until nine years later! Finally, in 1887,
the amendment was voted on and rejected by the Senate with a 16 in favor and 34 opposed vote.
The movement then began to concentrate on a state-by-state effort to achieve suffrage.
Many of the new western states such as Wyoming, Utah, and Washington were
already allowing women to vote. Throughout the early 1900s, many more western states were
added to this number, with 15 states eventually passing women s suffrage laws prior to 1920.
However, despite these successes, the idea of a constitutional amendment would not go away.
The amendment was proposed again in 1914, as well as 1915 and 1918. Each time, it failed to receive
the required number of votes. The amendment was voted on again by the House of Representatives
in February of 1919, and it once again failed to pass by one vote. On May 21, 1919,
the measure was voted on once more, finally receiving the necessary votes. It was then
voted on by the Senate, which also approved the amendment after lengthy discussion.
This was only the first step in approving the new amendment, though. It had received the
necessary two-thirds vote from both the House of Representatives and the Senate, but in order to
become part of the Constitution, another step was necessary. Three-fourths of the state legislatures
needed to ratify the amendment. This could have been a lengthy process, as some amendments are
not approved for years and years if at all. The first three states to ratify the amendment
were Wisconsin, Illinois, and Michigan. All three of these states did so on June 10, 1919.
Over the next year, states continued to ratify the amendment,
one at a time. A total of 36 states were needed for the amendment to become law. Tennessee
became the 36th state to ratify, making the 19th Amendment official on August 18, 1920.
The amendment reads: 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.
Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.
The amendment was not a popular one amongst some citizens.
Many did not feel that women should be allowed to vote. It was immediately challenged in court.
The Supreme Court case known as Leser v. Garnett argued that this amendment took away a state
s right to determine for itself whether women should vote. The Supreme Court dismissed this
claim and upheld the amendment as constitutional. Some states still refused to ratify the amendment,
even though it was now law. Many southern states such as South Carolina,
Georgia, Louisiana, and North Carolina did not ratify the amendment until the 1970s.
Mississippi did not ratify it until March 22, 1984!
Regardless of the protests against the amendment,
the goal of the Women s Suffrage Movement had been achieved. Women began voting immediately,
and they soon became a powerful force in the world of politics.