The 19th Amendment:
Seventy-five Year Celebration of Women's Right to Vote

By Laura V. Farber

As several affiliates across the country face the challenge of diversifying the profession and eliminating bias, many young lawyers take for granted their right to work, and their right to vote. It is a given that women and men in the profession and in society as a whole should have the right to vote, yet prior to the passage of the 19th Amendment, this subject was an issue of intense debate.

Most people are aware that women won the right to vote much later than men, and to do so, they had to organize a movement. However people do not realize that obtaining this right was an extremely difficult process, faced with massive opposition. These struggles included battles over sexism, cultural limitations, political and social opposition, men's strong objections, and women's own timidity. Finally in 1920, the U.S. Constitution was amended by the 19th Amendment to prohibit disfranchisement on account of sex.

As our society and our lawyers consider the viability of American democracy and obstacles to women's equality, revisiting the lessons of history and celebrating the great achievement made by women who were determined to obtain their own enfranchisement is very relevant and pertinent today.

Like several American reform movements, the demand for women's enfranchisement began in the East, but flowered in the West. African American men were enfranchised by the 15th Amendment which was passed in 1869. Since that time, the U.S. Constitution has provided two methods to obtain enfranchisement: amending the federal Constitution or seeking enfranchisement through the states. Several decades before the 19th Amendment was passed, states in western territories passed their own laws granting female citizens the right to vote, beginning with the Wyoming and Utah Territories in 1869 and 1870 and the state of Colorado in 1893.

However, prior to enactment of these laws, women struggled for a voice and the right to express that voice. In 1840, at an anti-slavery convention held in London, Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton attended the convention and were denied the right to speak, vote, or even sit in the same chairs as the men in attendance. They were put in a balcony behind a screen during the proceedings.

Eight years later, at Seneca Falls, New York, Ms. Mott and Ms. Stanton organized the first convention to discuss American women's need for equality. "The Declaration of Sentiments" published as a result of this convention stated: "We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men and women are created equal; that they are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness." Three years later the first National Convention for women's rights planned by Lucy Stone and Lucretia Mott was attended by 1,000 delegates.

In 1853, the first women's rights newspaper was founded in Providence, Rhode Island. Lucy Stone married Henry Blackwell but refused to give up her own name or promise to obey him. Their marriage contract read: "We believe that personal independence and equal human rights can never be forfeited except for crime, that marriage should be an equal and permanent partnership and so recognized by law; that until it is so recognized, married partners should provide against the radical injustice of present laws by every means in their power."

In 1867, Kansas put a women's suffrage amendment proposal on the ballot. Voters in the Kansas election defeated the amendment. After Wyoming and Utah territories gave women the right to vote, in 1870, the 15th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution passed assuring the right to vote to all citizens. Victoria Woodhill declared herself a candidate for the presidency with African American abolitionist, Frederick Douglass, as her running mate. Mrs. Woodhill commented about her campaign: "My campaign will open a door to be shut no more forever."

One year later, Mrs. Woodhill became the first woman to address members of Congress when she argued for women's suffrage before a committee of the House of Representatives. The following year, Susan B. Anthony voted for Ulysses S. Grant in the presidential election and was arrested for voting illegally, convicted, and fined $100.

In 1873, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in the case of Bradwell v. Illinois that a state could prohibit a married woman from practicing law. The court stated in dicta: "The natural and proper timidity and delicacy which belongs to the female sex evidently unfits it for many of the occupations of civil life." Two years later in the case of Minor v. Happersett, the Supreme Court defined women as "persons" but added that women born in the United States were "a special category of non-voting citizens." Like Susan B. Anthony, Virginia Minor had voted illegally.

One year later in 1876, Senator A. A. Sargent from California introduced a women's suffrage amendment into the U.S. Senate. It was not voted on.

In 1879, through special congressional legislation, Belva Lockwood became the first woman lawyer certified to try a case before the Supreme Court.

In 1887, eight years later, a women's suffrage amendment was voted on in the Senate of the U.S. Congress and was defeated by a vote of 34 to 16. Twenty-Five senators did not appear for the vote. During that very session, Congress also voted to ban polygamy and women's suffrage in the Utah Territory.

In 1890, Wyoming was admitted to the Union as the first state to grant women the right to vote. Three years later, Colorado granted women the right to vote. In 1896, Utah joined the Union and restored women's right to vote.

Despite former President Grover Cleveland's opinion that "sensible and responsible women do not want to vote" in 1910, the men of Washington State granted women the right to vote. One year later in 1911, the men of California granted women the right to vote. Oregon, Kansas, and Arizona followed in 1912.

In 1913, a congressional union was created to work for passage of a national women's suffrage amendment. This group became the National Women's Party. Parades for suffrage drew thousands of supporters to New York and Washington, D.C., and such a parade on May 11, 1913, made the front page of the picture section of the New York Times with the caption "Suffragists' showiest parade along 5th Avenue."

Montana and Nevada followed suit in 1914, and one year later President Woodrow Wilson stated: "I intend to vote for women's suffrage in New Jersey because I believe that the time has come to extend that privilege and responsibility to the women of the state; but I shall vote, not as a leader of my party in the nation, but only upon my private conviction as a citizen of New Jersey called upon by the legislature of the state to express his conviction at the polls. I think that New Jersey will be greatly benefitted by the change."

In 1917, the National Women's Party staged a peaceful picketing of the White House in Washington, D.C. Two hundred women holding signs and banners were arrested and subjected to brutal treatment by the police. New York then granted women the right to vote. Jeannette Rankin was elected by voters in Montana to be the first woman to serve in the House of Representatives.

The men of Michigan, South Dakota, and Oklahoma were next to grant women the right to vote.

Finally, in 1919, the 19th Amendment was passed by both houses of Congress. The following year, 1920, three-fourths of the states ratified the 19th Amendment. Men of the United States granted women the right to vote.

Today, women's votes are still shaking up the status quo. Women's issues, female candidates, and gender gaps in voting returns are on the forefront of political agendas and often help to determine the outcomes of elections. Currently, women make up 53 percent of the electorate.

Indeed, the struggle to obtain a simple right for women was tremendous. When our affiliates are struggling to educate our members and the community at large about the continuing existence of bias and the need to diversify the members of our bench, our profession, and the leaders of this "free country," we will hopefully keep in perspective the hard work that has been done in the past which has allowed us to face these challenges with vigor, endurance, and commitment.