Voting or suffrage is proclaimed to be one of the fundamental rights of a citizen of any country. However, a couple of centuries ago, this right was a privilege for many people. Multiple American citizens have been denied voting due to their race, gender, social, and economic status. Such inequality caused many protests, reforms, and riots, in particular, amongst women. The women’s suffrage movement has been an ongoing and heated issue during the 18th and 19th centuries (Ondercin & Key, 2020). The suffrage movement merged with the women’s vote because it fought to give white women the right to vote. The struggle for women’s suffrage was a conflict that corresponded with the right to vote for freed slaves. Despite the protracted battle, women eventually gained several voting rights. This paper aims to investigate the factors that ratified the Nineteenth Amendment that further enabled women to vote.
Beginning in the 1800s, women arranged, advanced, and picketed to get an opportunity to cast a ballot; however, it took them decades to accomplish their objective. Between 1878, when the modification was first presented in Congress, and August 18, 1920, when it was endorsed, supporters of the women’s declaration worked with excitement; however, the strategies for accomplishing their objectives were phenomenal (Ondercin & Key, 2020). Some followed the method of establishing witness laws in every state – nine Western states had passed women’s witness laws by 1912 (Wilkins, 2020). Others tested only men’s democratic laws in the courts. Suffragette activists used strategies such as marches, silent vigils, and passionate strikes. Regularly, supporters met with wild obstacles. Their opponents tormented them, put them in prison, and from time to time, actually mistreated them.
Throughout the 18th century, there were no mentions concerning a voting woman. It was thought that most women were forbidden to vote or enjoy the same rights as men because the legal existence of a married woman was included in the legal reality of her husband (Ondercin & Key, 2020). People used to have a prejudice that women’s place was at home and not at governmental affairs. There were beliefs that the social and political status of a woman corresponds to that of the slaves. Such a comparison provoked women suffrage movement activists to revolt.
After adopting the United States Constitution of 1789, the issue of suffrage was still vague. The United States House of Representatives was the only body created under the control of the Constitution. The electorates were allocated to the individual states. At the same time, women maintained whatever authority is needed to cast a ballot in a few pre-dynamic regions in what might turn into the United States. After 1776, except for New Jersey, all States embraced constitutions that denied women casting a ballot right (Wayne, 2020). From the start, the New Jersey Constitution permitted proprietors to vote, including unmarried and wedded women (Wilkins, 2020). However, in 1807, the state limited the voting rights for women, and only in 1920 did New Jersey accept the Nineteenth Amendment restring these rights.
The movement came to a halt during the American Civil War, and its activists were concentrated on the war issues rather than on the suffrage problems. However, during those times, suffragists and abolitionists built close connections and decided to collaborate for achieving common goals. During the Reconstruction period, women’s privilege leaders insisted on including the general certificate as common law in the reconstruction amendments (Wilkins, 2020). Their collaboration was kept on moving until the Fifteenth Amendment passage that suggested voting rights to black men. Several critics unsuccessfully quarreled that the Fifteenth Amendment, which forbids suffrage due to race, age, or gender, implies ballot for women. Regardless of their efforts, these changes did not emancipate women. The second segment of the Fourteenth Amendment punished those states that denied adult male residents the right to vote; therefore, people were divided into several camps.
The American Civil War postponed the development of women’s voting rights. However, it continued during the Reconstruction period lasting from 1865 to 1877. Two opposing fractions appeared in 1869: the National Woman’s Suffrage Association (NWSA), led by the abolitionists, Elizabeth Stanton and Susan B. Anthony, and the American Women’s Suffrage Association (AWSA), led by the suffragist, Lucy Stanton (Brigance, 2005; Wayne, 2020). The main effort of the NWSA was to agitate Congress for changes to the US Constitution regarding women’s rights. AWSA has, for the most part, focused around the lingering tension of state battles to fulfill the ladies’ certificate on a state premise.
While scattered developments and associations dedicated to ladies’ privileges already existed, the Seneca Falls Convention of 1848 in New York was usually held to develop American ladies’ rights. The show, which almost 300 ladies and men attended, was intended to discuss the social, general, and strict privileges of ladies and ended with the Declaration of Sentiments’ appropriation (Wayne, 2020). This declaration guaranteed that women were equal to men in their rights to vote and aimed to establish equity in property rights and education issues. The ninth of the twelve established positions of the archive, marked by 68 ladies and 32 men, states that this nation’s ladies must make sure of their sacred right to an elected institution.
Organizers, Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton were essential figures in the history of the entire movement. These two women used to be active abolitionists who were angered that they could not participate in an anti-slavery movement because of their gender. Their fighting for the rights movement was often referred to as the women’s suffrage movement. Mott’s help with the ladies’ rights came when the summer passed with the Seneca people, one of six clans in the Iroquois Confederacy. She was surprised that those women had so much political power. In 1851, Stanton and Mott were joined by Susan B. Anthony, whose advocacy for the suffrage movement astonished many women (Ondercin & Key, 2020). Their power included the ability to choose and exclude bosses and veto demonstrations of war.
The appearance of the Women’s Christian Temperance union in 1874 significantly helped women to promote suffrage rights. However, there were several opponents to the movement, such as the liquor industry and immigrants. Both groups stated that it would threaten their rights and expose them to many hindrances. Therefore, women realized that such a resistance would only spread, and they decided to focus on other areas of development. Women were agitated with food safety, child labor, and work safety (Brigance, 2005). By that time, many anti-suffrage movements were defeated, and women started to gain their voting rights during the war.
The suffrage movement has got much support by the end of the Civil War due to the women’s help and assistance during the military events. Therefore, President Woodrow Wilson decided to issue an amendment providing women with voting right. However, the attempt to implement this change was rejected by the Senate in 1918 (Brigance, 2005). In the midterm elections of 1918, the National Women’s Party launched a campaign to remove Congress members who opposed suffrage. The House of Representatives and the Senate granted the Nineteenth Amendment to the Constitution in 1919 because of the women’s valuable contributions during the war. The amendment’s ratification date was August 18, 1920, when Tennessee approved the bill (Brigance, 2005). That was the moment when women felt freedom and equality.
The Nineteenth Amendment guarantees every American lady the right to vote. This goal’s achievement required a long and challenging battle, the triumph necessary many years of turmoil and discord. Starting in the mid-nineteenth century, a few generations of women who remained as supporters of declaration turned, created, strolled, crusaded, and practiced General disobedience to accomplish what numerous Americans thought about an extraordinary change in the Constitution. Very few of the early supporters lived to see their last victory in 1920. By 1916, virtually all significant discretionary associations had United around the goal of constitutional revision. The second women’s suffrage was introduced in New York in 1917, and President Wilson changed his situation to help fix it in 1918, political equality started to move.
On May 21, 1919, the spot of specialists passed a review, and the Senate tailed it fourteen days after this reality. Exactly when Tennessee turned into the 36th state to affirm the change on August 18, 1920, the amendment vanquished its last obstacle in getting the consent of seventy-five percent of the States (Brigance, 2005). Secretary of state Bainbridge Colby made sure about the approval on August 26, 1920, everlastingly changing the American electorate’s core.
This amendment significantly impacted American society in a way that it established equality. Since those times men and women became independent in relation to voting. The entire suffrage movement helped to reshape the political discourse imposing new laws and developing the areas which used to be vulnerable. Now women can advocate for job opportunities, education, fair salary, and other social needs (Wayne, 2020). Moreover, women can be elected since the amendment allowed them to vote. Women voted and eventually ran for president to improve the lives of the government and individuals.
In conclusion, it is vital to state that women had an enormously long-lasting fight for political justice. This event seems crucial to me because it relates to the fundamental right of a person. Therefore, I believe that Stanton, Anthony, and Mott have proved that fighting for the right to vote is the same as fighting for equality. This suffrage movement brought about significant alterations to society. The suffrage movement gave women a voice that enabled them to amend many aspects of life on local, state, and even federal levels. Many reforms were altered and imposed due to this movement. Women were endowed with an opportunity to resolve many acute issues, such as drug, food, and work safety, and be involved in political affairs. If any historian wants to continue my research, it would be newsworthy to investigate the families’ lives impacted by this very amendment. Moreover, this research can be demonstrated as a brief explanation of the event that significantly affected American society.
References
Brigance, L. C. (2005). Ballots and bullets: adapting women’s rights arguments to the conditions of war. Women and Language, 28(1), 1.
Ondercin, H., & Key, E. (2020). Introduction to women’s political involvement in the 100 years since the Nineteenth Amendment. PS: Political Science & Politics, 53(3), 465-469.
Wayne, T. (Ed.). (2020). Women’s suffrage: the complete guide to the Nineteenth Amendment. Santa Barbara, USA: ABC-CLIO.
Wilkins, V. (2020). Women’s suffrage movement. Berlin, Germany: POGO.