Wo m e n ’s H is to ry Mo n th
Fighting for the Right to Vote
It’s sobering to realize that in the 225-year
history of the U.S. Constitution, women have
only had the right to vote in every state for 92
of them, and only following passage of the 19th
Amendment to the Constitution in 1920.
In fact, going all the way back to 1776, Abigail
Adams wrote a letter to her husband, John, who
was hard at work in Philadelphia helping to draft
the Declaration of Independence. She asked that
he and his colleagues “remember the ladies.” John
Adams responded, in jest, that the Declaration’s
wording specified, “all men are created equal.”
But it was no joke that the U.S. Constitution as
ratified in 1787 guaranteed the right to vote only
to white men. Of course it also turned a blind eye
to the cruel institution of slavery in the southern
states. Because of the obvious discrepancies
between the high-minded principles set forth
in the Constitution and the Declaration of
Independence and the realities of slavery and
the legalized subservience of women, pockets
of American citizens began agitating for equality
for both groups soon after the United States was
founded.
For most of our country’s
history women were secondclass citizens, completely
disenfranchised. It took
unrelenting courage from a
determined movement to
finally turn the tide in 1920.
In the early 19th century all sorts of reform
groups sprouted up—temperance clubs, new
religious sects, and anti-slavery organizations—
where women were able to assume positions of
leadership. The creative ferment gave rise to a
new image of womanhood—one that did not
depend on submissive roles for women. Many
actually began to think of themselves as citizens
of the United States.
The idea that women should be allowed to
vote in local, state and federal elections finally
took form in 1848 in a seminal gathering in
Seneca Falls, New York. Two activists, Elizabeth
Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott, organized the
meeting. The delegates composed a Declaration
of Sentiments that proclaimed, “that all men and
women are created equal….” The bottom line was
that they believed women should have the right
to vote.
The movement for women’s rights picked
up momentum, but ironically had to take a back
seat to the push to end slavery. After the Civil
War ended, the new constitutional amendments
(the 14th defined “citizen” as “male” and the 15th
guaranteed the right to vote to black men) raised
the familiar issues of suffrage and citizenship for all
women in the re-united country.
Stanton found a new ally in Susan B. Anthony
and together they founded the National Woman
Suffrage Association. They refused to support
passage of the 15th Amendment and even allied
with racist Southerners who argued that white
women’s votes could be used to neutralize those
cast by African-Americans. They pushed for a
universal suffrage amendment to the federal
Constitution. It would come to be known as the
Anthony Amendment.
Anthony ramped up the campaign in 1872 by
attempting to register and vote herself, using the
14th Amendment as justification. She and a group
of supporters were arrested. She was tried in 1873
for “illegally voting.” Nevertheless, the Anthony
Amendment is introduced in Congress for the first
time in 1878.
Seeing that black enfranchisement was
threatened by tying it to the significantly less
popular campaign for the woman’s vote, another
group fought for the female vote on a state-bystate basis.
By 1890, any ill will between the two groups
had faded and they merged to form the National
American Woman Suffrage Association with
Stanton voted as its first president. They took a
new political tack, arguing that women should
get to vote not because they were the same as
men, but because they were different. They would
create a purer more maternal commonwealth.
Throughout the latter 19th century, and in
small pockets of the country, women began
obtaining voting rights, first in school and local
elections. Women were gaining success in western
states—Utah and Idaho extended women the
right to vote in all elections before the turn of the
century. But resistance remained strong in the
more established Eastern and Southern states.
Early in the 20th century the movement once
again split, with the existing NAWSA under the
leadership of Carrie Chapman Catt attempting
to mobilize local suffrage groups at a grass roots
level. Catt would go on to found the League of
Women Voters in the 1920s. A splinter group
called the National Woman’s Party took a more
militant approach by staging hunger strikes and
mass picket demonstrations, aimed at gaining
dramatic publicity for the cause.
H
H
H
H
H
H
H
Remind Your
Members of the
Struggle for Suffrage
No matter what your political beliefs
may be, it is important that you
exercise your precious right to vote
every time you get the opportunity.
And since March is Women’s History
Month, we are providing a brief history
of the Women’s Suffrage movement
in which so many thousands of
courageous women put their lives and
reputations on the line. They sacrificed
much through most of the 19th century
in order to extend the rights that are
guaranteed in the U.S. Constitution to
all women of our country. It’s too easy
to forget their struggle as it is too easy
to forget to even use the right to vote,
especially in elections that don’t have
national significance.
We encourage you to reprint the
following article in your local group’s
newsletter to help remind all ABWA
members of their rights and obligations
as citizens of a free society. We need
to remember the struggle that made
it all possible. Because 2012 is also a
Presidential election year, your vote is
more vital than ever.
By 1912, the states of Washington, California,
Michigan, Kansas, Oregon, and Arizona had
approved the right to vote for women.
War again slowed the suffrage movement, but
also served to advance their argument anyway.
Activists pointed out that women’s work on behalf
of the World War effort proved that they were just
as patriotic and deserving of citizenship as men.
In 1919, Congress approved the new
amendment
allowing
universal
suffrage
throughout the country. On Aug. 26, 1920,
the Tennessee legislature ratified the 19th
Amendment to the Constitution, making it the last
state necessary to approve extending to women
the right to vote.
Sadly, many of the women who devoted their
lives to bring the vote to women did not live to
cast one. Elizabeth Cady Stanton died in 1902 and
Susan B. Anthony died in 1906.
But their deeds live on when any woman
takes a ballot and exercises her precious right as a
citizen of the United States of America. H