Reasoning Behind The 19th Amendment Essay example

Just one hundred years ago, women in the United States were not allowed to vote. The 19th amendment was not ratified until June 4, 1919. The 19th amendment granted women the right to vote. Women activists had been fighting decades to have such a right. There were many factors that made the 19th amendment possible such as women’s rights organizations, advocates, conventions, and marches. The women’s right movement paved the way to accomplishing the ratification of a female’s right to vote.

We know that women did not have the right to vote in the United States from the time they were granted freedom from Great Britain in 1776, all the way up until 1920, but why did they not have the right to vote? Women during that 144 year span had virtually no rights at all. Many people had the mindset that since women could not fight for their country, they did not deserve the right to vote. Men viewed women as their weaknesses, not someone who is equal to

Voting right in America around the early 1800s was a very complex process, because many of the politicians and government leaders had supported slavery, which led to limited voting rights to those who were legally free. Women, however weren’t treated as equals to men, therefore they didn’t get much attention to their voting rights (which at the time there was none). There were two other major factors in voting as well, which were socioeconomics and land owners, making the poor worker class have very little political freedoms as well. Most of the voting privileges went to rich white men.

At the beginning of this all states denied voting rights, during the time of the civil war suffrage bills were introduced but many of them were altogether neglected. When our country entered the reconstruction period the 13th and the 15 amendment were passed and these amendments allowed to slaves to be free and to give African Americans the right to vote yet this still did nothing for suffrage. When the amendment was not considered by Congress there was a 30 year period called “the doldrums” where the suffrage movement did accomplish some victories. Suffragist really pushed for the right to vote in laws of individual states and territories to achieve federal recognition. In 1910 and 1911 movement started in in California and Washington. Within the next years Westerns states started to pass voter referenda enacting in suffrage for women. A lot of this progress was in fact linked to the election that was going on with Woodrow Wilson which caused the rise of progressive and social parties.

“To the wrongs that need resistance, to the right that needs assistance, to the future in the distance, give yourselves.” These are the powerful words of Carrie Chapman Catt, a notorious American Women’s Suffrage leader who had a tremendous impact on the Women’s Right Movement, and the passage of the 19th Amendment in 1920. This inspirational quote not only symbolizes the Women’s Rights Movement and what it stood for, but also shows a glimpse of just how determined and driven women were to make a difference then, and for the future. The 19th amendment to the constitution of the United States guarantees all women nationwide the right to vote,

Before 1920 women did not have the right to vote. They were known as “second class citizens”. Women were to stay home to help and organize the family’s necessities. Having any

In a similar manner to the slaves, women were motivated by the beliefs preached in camp meetings and churches during the Second Great Awakening. Due to the amount of free time the women had, they attended these churches more often than men, allowing them to absorb the ideas from the sermons. These women not only became motivated to fight for the rights of slaves, but also for their own since human freedom was one of the essential ideas of the Second Great Awakening. During the international anti-slavery convention, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony were denied the right to participate just because of their genders. With the ideas of the Second Great Awakening in their minds, they created the Women’s Right Convention in Seneca Falls, where they wrote the Declaration of Sentiments that listed all of the ways in which males have wronged them by denying equality to them. It marked the beginning of a long struggle to gain equality between men and women. Among the many things that they wanted to have equality in was divorce, inheritance, property, and children. Therefore, the concept of freedom for all Americans from the Second Great Awakening triggered a movement to give women freedom from the bonds of men by means of equality.

One of the many movements in the reform is the women's rights movement. Women could not vote, attend schools, or have certain jobs. They were expected to take care of the house, cook, and clean. Two women named Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Stanton impacted this movement in many ways. They had the idea to create a convention after they were told women could not take part in the proceedings . Their convention discussed many things such as, social, civil, and religious rights of women. This was the first gathering aimed toward women. Later Stanton wrote The Declaration of Sentiments. The Declaration of Sentiments talked about full equality for women. This document changed society and women were now allowed to do things they were not allowed to do before.

In most modern governments, such as the United States of America, give the right to vote to almost every responsible adult citizen. There were limiters on the right to vote when the US Constitution was written, and the individual states were allowed to setup their own rules governing who was allowed to vote. Women were denied the right to vote until the Nineteenth Amendment to the Constitution which was passed in 1920. In order to understand how women struggled to obtain the right to vote, some key factors must be looked at in further detail; why suffrage rights were not defined in the Constitution, the efforts that women put forth to obtain the right to vote, why there are present-day restrictions on

3. In June 1919 a bill was passed by Congress, the 19th Amendment, granting women the right to vote. This bill was made law on August 26, 1920.

White males gained universal suffrage because of their numbers, breaking the aristocratic property-based tradition. In the earliest days of the United States, most state constitutions adopted the same voting eligibility as were established in the colonies and in Britain: ownership of property. The justification for this,

Daniel Hoover Professor Jack Citron/ Joseph Warren Political Science 1 September 22nd, 2015 The Constitution is not a Democratic Document The U.S. Constitution revolutionized the American political system, and shaped world history by inspiring other states to imitate its protection of civil liberties in the later adopted Bill of Rights, checks and balances between branches within the federal government, and guarantees to state governments. For the purpose of this paper, it is essential to analyze the Constitution in its early form because it established the conditions from which our federal republic has evolved. In addition, the Constitution of December 15th, 1791, the date when the promised Bill of Rights was added, best reflects the intentions

Though this equality was determined in the 14th amendment, many states still restricted women’s suffrage.

If you asked a fourth grader when women had the right to vote they’d probably answer the same time as men. Unfortunately, that was not the case if history serves. Women haven’t been able to vote for even a hundred years yet, and while that is important in general, it’s also important to me. The first reason the 19th amendment is important to me is because it’s one of the movements women and men had to fight for in American history.

Women lacked the standing to make a difference. For example, women were not allowed to work in politics or even serve on juries. The suppression of women persisted until about the 1850’s when women started to recognize their worth and how they were not valued as much as men. Because of this inequality, they started to express how they felt about it in a peaceful manner. According to US House of Representatives historian, “Initially, women reformers addressed social and institutional barriers that limited women’s rights; including family responsibilities, a lack of educational and economic opportunities, and the absence of a voice in political debates” (History, Art, and Archives) . Even if a women went to college, it was not common for her to finish with a degree. Most women went to college to find a man to marry and settle down with.