The Nineteenth Amendment

The Nineteenth Amendment provides that the right of citizens to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex, and gives Congress power to enforce it. The campaign began with the Seneca Falls Convention of 1848. When the Fifteenth Amendment barred racial discrimination in voting but said nothing about sex, suffragists split and then reunited, and an amendment drafted in the spirit of Susan B. Anthony was first introduced in Congress in 1878.

Progress came state by state. Wyoming Territory granted women the vote in 1869, and by 1918 women could vote fully in more than a dozen states, mostly in the West. Suffragists used parades, lobbying, and picketing of the White House, and women's contributions in World War I strengthened their case. Congress proposed the amendment on June 4, 1919, and Tennessee provided the decisive 36th ratification on August 18, 1920, by a single vote in its House. It was certified on August 26, 1920, now marked as Women's Equality Day.

The amendment doubled the potential electorate, and women have voted at higher rates than men in every presidential election since 1980. Its promise was uneven at first. Many Black women in the South remained excluded by the same poll taxes and literacy tests used against Black men until the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and Native American women gained full citizenship only in 1924. Courts have read the amendment to cover voting itself, while broader questions of sex discrimination are decided under the equal protection clause.