The Matter of Voting Rights in the US
The matter of voting rights in the US, precisely the disenfranchisement and enfranchisement of various categories, has been contested all over the history of United States. The right to vote is established both via the state law and the federal constitution. Numerous constitutional amendments necessitate that the rights of voting cannot be condensed on account of color, race, sex, preceding condition of servitude or the age above eighteen years, and when the constitution was initially written, it did not set up any such rights during the year 1787-1870. When a particular federal law or constitutional provision is absent, each and every state is provided with substantial prudence to set up qualifications for suffrage as well as candidacy within its respective jurisdiction[1]. Moreover, lower level jurisdictions and states set up systems of elections, for instance, single-member district or at-large elections for either school boards or county councils. In some cases, particularly for the municipal and county elections, a large number voting has been challenged constantly anytime it is found to water down the voting influence of momentous minorities in infringement of the Voting Rights Act. The paper seeks to explain the various women voting rights practiced in the United States of America from 1877 to the current time.
People Granted Suffrage Rights in America
Originally, the United States Constitution did not specify who was rightfully allowed to vote thus permitting each state to agree on the people who were allowed to vote. According to the history of U.S., several states only permitted white male adults who owned property to vote. All the slaves who were at liberty were allowed to vote in four states whereas women just like men who did not own property, were majorly banned from voting. Moreover, black Americans who owned properties were also permitted to vote in the jurisdictions. However, this factor gradually changed and in the year 1857, all the white men were allowed to vote in all the states in regardless of whether they owned property or not even though the requirement for tax payment remained in all the five states[2]. Countries such as New Jersey and Pennsylvania, at that time, denied all the black men the right to vote. Later, four amongst the 15 post-Civil War constitutional amendments underwent changes so as to allow the extension of voting rights to various categories of citizens. The extension amendments stated that the rights to voting could not be denied based on sex, anyone above eighteen years, color or race and failures to pay any poll tax.
Women Suffrage Rights from 1877 to Date
Women voting rights have evolved so much from the year 1877 up to the present time. In the year 1878, Senator Aaron A. Sargent, who was a friend to Susan B. Anthony, introduced into the Congress a suffrage amendment that belonged to the women. Forty years later, it became the 19th Century amendment to the constitution of the United States with no absolute changes to its phraseology. In the year 1886, Elizabeth Cady Stanton declared herself a candidate for the U.S. Congress despite the fact that women were not allowed to run for office as they could not vote. The first countrywide suffrage organizations, therefore, were first established in the year 1869 by Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucy Stone[3]. Women in the post-civil War era became more concerned with securing the suffrage, and it was not until 1884 that another married woman's property was passed in New York guaranteeing both men and women equal rights[4]. In the year 1893, American women were extremely excited over the Colorado's election and this was regarded as a very big achievement. However, the Colorado Suffragists required the male voters to support them so that they could secure the franchise. They went out of their ways to convince several men in the state who were just not legislators but an elite group of men to readily share power with women.
Women Suffrage Rights Before the Colorado Court
When the query of women suffrage was brought before the voters of Colorado for the first time in 1877, they failed to listen to it. In fact, four hundred and eighty campaigns to women put voters o the ballot of states in the 19th century, a total of only 17 women managed to reach the ballot. However, the extreme celebration made Colorado the very 1st state to enfranchise the women via a famous referendum[5]. All these took place in about a quarter century just before the accomplishment of statewide women suffrage in the year 1920. The rights of women to vote were protected for municipal elections in the year 1887, and a referendum for complete suffrage was whitewashed in 1894 in disregard to the native syndication of the pro-suffragist newspaper known as The Farmers Wife and a much better concerted though splintered campaign. The banning of saloons from the year 1880 considerably weakened the anti-suffrage antagonism by eradicating their traditional voter base of saloon patrons. Eventually, the side of the pro-suffrage secured women's right to vote amendment, and from then henceforth, Kansas became the 8th state to permit for the complete suffrage for the women.
Women Suffrage Rights in the Western and Eastern States
The western territories and states favored women's suffrage more than the eastern states predictably because they had fewer women. They put women in the frontier, and it sounded quite a good deal as it attracted the women more to them as well as encouraging female immigrants into the west as they awarded the women who were already living there with female votes. In 1878, women had received equal suffrage with the men and this triggered objectors who concentrated much on the lone issue of women's rights to vote. They went ahead to the view makers to enlighten them and convince them to support the objective of suffrage. Later in 1920 when other women all over the nation obtained their voting rights, the women in Wyoming had already voted for close to a half a century[6]. Wyoming, on the other hand, granted women voting rights in the year 1869 although the first woman to cast her vote known as Louisa Ann Swain of Laramie did so in 1870. In 1890, Wyoming was declared under Republican control to be the first state to allow her women to cast their votes and went ahead to insist that it would not let statehood devoid of keeping women voting rights.
Women Suffrage Rights in the 19th Century
In 1887, Congress disenfranchised the women of Utah with the Edmunds-Tucker Act that was intended to wane the Mormons politically as well as punish them for their polygamous act. During that time, some activists like the Protestant and the Presbyterians who were deeply convinced that Mormonism was a non-Christian sect that hideously mishandled women, boosted the women's voting rights in Utah as a model as well as a way to do away with polygamy entirely. In 1890, the LDS church, therefore, brought to a stop its practice of polygamy and adopted the constitution that restored women suffrage in 1895. Congress, after that, admitted the state of Utah with that particular constitution in 1896. Immediately after Wyoming attained statehood, Idaho and Colorado states followed by giving their women their suffrage rights. A referendum held in Colorado State in the year 1893, made it the second to give their women their voting rights and they also made a record when the men voted to grant the women their voting rights. Later in 1896, Idaho agreed to a constitutional amendment with a nationwide vote guaranteeing their women their suffrage right.
Women Suffrage Rights in the 20th Century
In the year 1911, the voters in California approved of their women's rights to vote after they adopted Proposition 4. A Chinese American woman known as Clara Elizabeth Chan Lee was the first voter in the United States. She became a registered voter on 8th November 1911 in California State. In Oregon, Arizona, women's right to vote was won in the year 1912, and this was achieved by some activists who used the proposal procedure. The men in Montana voted an end to women discrimination in the ballot box in 1914, and as a team, they went ahead and voted in the very first woman to the US Congress in the year 1916, and she was known as Jeannette Rankin. Arizona as well granted their women the right to vote in the same year. New York also granted their women the right to vote in the year 1917 after Tammany Hall decided to halt its resistance. Harriot Stanton Blatch paid attention to mobilizing several working-class women to fight for their voting rights, and this helped New York to finally grant women their voting rights. After the passage of the nineteenth amendment to the constitution in 1920, adult women were entitled to suffrage, but if they were black and lived in the segregated South, they were excluded from the polls.
The Machine Era and the 19th Amendment
The machine Era of the late 19th and early-to-mid 20th centuries represents a time of widespread voter fraud, as immigrants and migrating southerners were incorporated into the electorate of large, northern cities and statewide machines took hold in the South[7]. In order to bring a halt to the fraud, some of the progressive changes included the Australian secret ballot and the movement for women suffrage also gained support from President Wilson. On November 2 of the very same year, over 8 million women across the US voted in elections for the first time. However, it took over 60 years for the remaining 12 states to ratify the Nineteenth Amendment. Mississippi was the last to do so on 22nd March 1984[8]. In the present time, all women in America are allowed to vote. According to the US Constitution, the 19th Amendment that was agreed upon on 18th August 1920, granted all American women their suffrage rights[9]. The Amendment also stated that women can do anything that the men can do. It was argued that they should vote because they equally suffer from a bad government just like the men and that they also pay taxes. Mothers have the best at heart for their children as they want to create a good environment for their children. Moreover, women require trainings on a higher sense of civic and social responsibility. Both men and women now have equal voting rights, and their voices now count as well.
Conclusion
The politicians actively responded to the 19th Amendment by emphasizing on issues of exceptional interests to women such as prohibition, public schools, children's health, and world peace. Even though women suffrage was officially stated in the constitution in the year 1920, very few women compared to men turned out for the voting process in 1980. From then henceforth, the percentage of women during voting has favorably competed for that of men in the present time. The variance between male and female turnout known as gender gap has seriously reduced and it has also had an influence on political elections and the way candidates vote. The existence of women in Congress has slowly increased since the nineteenth Amendment with the 113th Congress having up to about twenty female senators as well as seventy-seven female representatives.
Bibliography
Bolt, Christine. The Women's Movements in the United States and Britain from the 1790s to the 1920s. Routledge, 2014.
De Hart, Jane Sherron, Cornelia Hughes Dayton, and Judy Tzu-Chun Wu. Women's America: Refocusing the past. Oxford University Press, USA, 2015.
Smith, Michael A., Kevin Anderson, and Chapman Rackaway. "Machines, Progressives, and Women’s Suffrage." In State Voting Laws in America: Historical Statutes and Their Modern Implications, pp. 22-31. Palgrave Macmillan, New York, 2015.
Wright, April. "An Overview of Women’s Suffrage and Women’s Roles in The United States During Both World Wars." (2017).
