NINETEENTH AMENDMENT

Nineteenth Amendment

Nineteenth Amendment

Introduction

Women historically have proven to be model leaders and have engaged in a wide array of reform movements. As it turns out, many of the reform movements of the nineteenth century occurred simultaneously and were led by women who counted among their primary goals the vote for women. The women's suffrage movement was not an isolated event; rather, it stemmed from the abolition movement and other reform movements that came about through the moral reforms proposed by evangelical Protestantism during the 1830s (Clift, 2003).

Acting on moral principles and church dogma, men and women alike sought to reform an ailing society riddled with social injustices that included slavery and intemperance. Some women participated in the public sphere as abolition agents and as public speakers for emancipation of slaves. Others worked for a temperate society under the leadership of moral reform groups such as the Women's Christian Temperance Society. Temperance societies believed that curtailing alcohol consumption would help alleviate violence in society, control domestic strife, and eradicate child abuse and neglect. Women often worked harmoniously among male reformers, and many women accepted their gendered space within the hierarchy of a male dominated society. However, as more women became exposed to public activism and public speaking, many began to reject the restrictions placed on them by church leaders, male officials, and dominating husbands and fathers. Conflicting views regarding women's roles in public activism led to heated debates and splits within various churches (Felder, 1999).

Discussion

The Nineteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution granted women's suffrage in 1920 by stipulating that the right to vote could not be denied on the basis of sex. The passage of the amendment was a result of 72 years of organizing, lobbying, and protesting on the part of the woman's suffrage movement, which originally enumerated its demand at the Seneca Falls Convention in 1848. As suffragists watched the Fourteenth (1868) and Fifteenth Amendments (1870) pass, which augmented the rights of African Americans, they remained disenfranchised. Leading suffragists Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony called for a Sixteenth Amendment that would grant women the vote, but it stalled in Congress (Gordon, 1997).

A new draft amendment was introduced into Congress in 1878, eventually known as the Susan B. Anthony Amendment. The amendment, which took 42 years to pass, was reintroduced in each session of Congress but was rarely brought to a vote in either the House or the Senate. Unsuccessful votes in 1887 and 1914 reflected the necessary work still to be done by suffragists.

President Woodrow Wilson's 1918 decision to come out in favor of women's suffrage signaled a shift among politicians, and his influence spurred several undecided legislators to vote in favor of the Susan B. Anthony Amendment in the House vote of January 10, 1918. The House of Representatives passed the amendment with the necessary two-thirds margin in 1918, with 274 votes in favor and 136 votes against, although it failed in the Senate twice ...