Women Won the Right to Vote 95 Years Ago Today (26 august1920)
Women Won the Right to Vote 95 Years Ago Today
Feminist_Suffrage_Parade_in_New_York_City,_1912
Twenty-six thousand, three hundred and thirty-four very long and difficult days ago, a small but brave band of suffrage pioneers declared: ” … that it is the duty of the women of this country to secure to themselves their sacred right to the elective franchise.” That day the Secretary of State proclaimed that the U.S. Constitution now would read:
“The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex,” and that “Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.”
The battle to add those two simple sentences to the Constitution took so long that of the 300 who attended the first women’s rights convention in Seneca Falls, New York, 100 of whom signed the “Declaration of Sentiments” on July 20, 1848, only Charlotte Woodward Pierce was still living on that day (and eagerly looking forward to casting her first vote on November 2!)
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But Alice Paul knew that winning the battle for suffrage was not the same as winning the war against all forms of sex discrimination. On August 18, the day Tennessee became the 36th and final state needed to complete the process of ratification, she said:
With their power to vote achieved, women will still have before them the task of supplementing political equality with equality in all other fields. In state and national legislation, as well as in other fields, women are not yet on an equal basis with men.
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Though it would be impossible to predict what course the NWP would take in this new, post-suffrage era, Alice Paul and its other leaders recognized many years ago that the only way to eliminate all the laws mandating sex discrimination at the polls was through a Constitutional amendment. A new drive for a 20th Amendment to ensure totally equal rights for women and men would begin not too long after the end of the campaign for the 19th Amendment.
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http://msmagazine.com/blog/2015/08/26/women-won-the-right-to-vote-95-years-ago-today/
