Suffs v Antis: The Long History of the Nineteenth Amendment (June 2020)

This essay first appeared in the June 2020 issue of Choice (volume 57 | issue 10).

Introduction:

The US Constitution as originally written and ratified left it to the states to determine eligibility to vote. Until amended in 1790, New Jersey’s State Constitution was notable for extending the franchise to all residents, including women and people of color, the only state in the new nation to eschew limitations based on race or gender. At the national level, the Fourteenth Amendment (1868) further defined the rights and privileges of citizenship and the Fifteenth Amendment (1870) later granted the vote to African American males specifically. Within this changing context, however, women still struggled to win the vote for themselves.

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About the author:

Duncan R. Jamieson’s PhD is in American intellectual history. He is a professor of history at Ashland University, Ashland, Ohio.