Module 32: The Nineteenth Amendment

Seventy-two Years from Seneca Falls

A convention at Seneca Falls, New York in 1848 produced the Declaration of Sentiments, which borrowed the language of the Declaration of Independence: "We hold these truths to be self-evident; that all men and women are created equal." Among its charges against men: "He has never permitted her to exercise her inalienable right to the elective franchise."¹ The Nineteenth Amendment became part of the Constitution 72 years later, on August 18, 1920.²

The path ran through the states first. Wyoming gave women full voting rights in 1869, followed by Colorado in 1893 and Utah and Idaho in 1896. By 1918, 15 states had full suffrage, most of them in the West.³ The remainder of the country needed a federal amendment.

The Fifteenth Amendment of 1870 barred denial of the vote on account of race and said nothing of sex. That omission divided the movement into two national societies, which rejoined in the 1890s.⁴ The Supreme Court closed a different door in 1875, as the case section below explains.

This lesson follows the amendment in order: the text; the Court's 1875 ruling in Minor v. Happersett; the Idaho campaign of 1893 to 1896; the passage in Congress; ratification, including Idaho's vote on February 11, 1920; the 1922 challenge in Leser v. Garnett; and how the amendment fits with the others that govern voting.

The Text, Word by Word

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. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

U.S. Const. amend. XIX²

"The right of citizens of the United States to vote"

The subject is the right of citizens to vote. The amendment does not say that the Constitution grants a right to vote in every election. It bars one reason for denying it.

"shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State"

"Denied" covers a flat ban and "abridged" covers rules that cut back a right, such as a heavier burden on one group. The words bind both the national government and the states.

"on account of sex"

The limit is a reason: sex. The amendment does not remove other qualifications. A state may still set age, residence and registration rules, as long as it does not use sex as the ground.

"Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation"

The enforcement clause follows the pattern of the Thirteenth, Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments. It gives Congress, as well as the courts, a role in making the right real.

Minor v. Happersett (1875)

Virginia Minor, a citizen of Missouri, tried to register to vote in 1872 and was refused. She sued the registrar and argued that the Fourteenth Amendment, which makes persons born in the United States citizens, made her a voter. The Supreme Court disagreed. Chief Justice Waite wrote that the Court was "unanimously of the opinion that the Constitution of the United States does not confer the right of suffrage upon any one, and that the constitutions and laws of the several States which commit that important trust to men alone are not necessarily void."⁵

That ruling set the problem for the next 45 years. If citizenship did not carry the vote, women would need a state law or a new amendment. The suffragists pursued both, and this lesson turns next to the state route in Idaho.

Idaho Wins the Vote, 1893 to 1896

The Idaho story is documented in a movement history written by Susan B. Anthony and Ida Husted Harper, a secondary source whose figures this lesson cites to the volume. A territorial suffrage bill failed on a tie in 1871, according to a secondary entry on the history site The Clio, and Abigail Scott Duniway spoke in Idaho in 1887 and 1889.⁶

The first Idaho suffrage society formed on May 16, 1893 in a country schoolhouse at Hagerman. At the request of Rebecca Mitchell of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union, a bill for a constitutional amendment was introduced in the 1893 legislature and lost "by only two votes."⁷

In 1894 the Republican state convention adopted a plank introduced by W. E. Borah to submit the question to voters. The 1895 legislature acted. The Senate passed the resolution unanimously on January 11, 1895, and the House passed it 33 to 2 on January 17.⁷ It was approved on January 21, 1895 as Senate Joint Resolution No. 2.⁸ The state's table of constitutional amendments lists it as Amendment No. 2, to article VI, section 2.⁹

The vote came on November 3, 1896. The count was 12,126 in favor and 6,282 against, a majority of 5,844. Opponents argued that the amendment needed a majority of all electors who voted for any office. The state Supreme Court, in a unanimous decision, held that a majority of those voting on the question was enough.⁷ The court's case name is not given in the history and was not found.

Women voted in the 1898 election and cast about 40 percent of the vote, according to the history. Three women, Clara Campbell, Hattie Noble and Mary Allen Wright, were elected to the legislature, and Permeal French became State Superintendent of Public Instruction.⁷

Passage in Congress

A women's suffrage amendment first came to a Senate vote on January 25, 1887, and failed 16 to 34. The House passed one on January 10, 1918 by 274 to 136, but the Senate rejected it on October 1, 1918 (53 to 31) and again on February 10, 1919 (55 to 29). In the next Congress, the House passed the amendment 304 to 89 on May 21, 1919, and the Senate followed 56 to 25 on June 4, 1919.³ The National Archives gives June 4, 1919 as the date of passage.²

The tallies come from a single Congressional Research Service report and were not checked against the Congressional Record.

Ratification, 1919 to 1920

Illinois, Wisconsin and Michigan ratified first, all on June 10, 1919. Thirty-six states were needed. Tennessee provided the 36th on August 18, 1920.³¹⁰ Secretary of State Bainbridge Colby certified the ratification on August 26, 1920.¹¹

Tennessee's vote was close, according to Wikipedia, the only source this lesson used for the details. The state Senate approved 25 to 4 on August 13. In the House, motions to table were tied 48 to 48 twice. Representative Harry Burn, who had voted to table, voted yes on the final vote, which passed with 50 of 99 members. Burn said he had believed his constituents opposed ratification and that a note from his mother urged him to vote yes.¹⁰ These details are flagged as secondary.

Later ratifications came from states that had rejected or not acted. The last was Mississippi, on March 22, 1984.¹⁰

Leser v. Garnett (1922)

Mary Randolph and Cecilia Waters were registered to vote in Baltimore on October 12, 1920. Oscar Leser sued to have their names removed, on the sole ground that they were women and Maryland's constitution limited voting to men. His brief argued the Nineteenth Amendment was not validly adopted: it added many voters without the state's consent, and some ratifying legislatures lacked the power under their own state constitutions to ratify.¹²

Justice Brandeis wrote for the Court. The first argument "applies no more to the Nineteenth Amendment than to the Fifteenth Amendment, which is valid beyond question." On the second, "the function of a state legislature in ratifying a proposed amendment to the Federal Constitution ... is a federal function derived from the Federal Constitution; and it transcends any limitations sought to be imposed by the people of a State."¹² Wikipedia reports the decision as unanimous.¹⁰

The same reasoning as in Hawke v. Smith from the Prohibition cases (see the Eighteenth Amendment module) applied: ratification is a federal act that state constitutions cannot condition.

What the Amendment Did and Did Not Do

The amendment removed sex as a ground for denying the vote. It did not remove other barriers. Other rules continued to limit voting for many citizens after 1920. The Fifteenth Amendment module follows those limits, and the Voting and the Later Amendments overview shows how the Twenty-fourth and Twenty-sixth Amendments and the Voting Rights Act addressed them.

The amendment also does not itself guarantee that a woman can hold any particular office, serve on a jury or sign a contract. Those questions depend on other law.

Quick Questions and Answers

When did the Nineteenth Amendment take effect?

It was ratified August 18, 1920 and certified August 26, 1920.²¹¹

Was Idaho an early suffrage state?

Yes. Voters approved the change on November 3, 1896.⁹⁷

When did Idaho ratify the national amendment?

On February 11, 1920, in a special session.¹³¹⁴¹⁵

Did the Court uphold the amendment?

Yes, in Leser v. Garnett (1922).¹²

Landmark Cases

Each case below was checked against the opinion text where a link appears in the footnotes. Supporting cases appear in the sections above.

The Idaho Connection

The 1896 amendment

Idaho voters added women to the electorate on November 3, 1896 by Amendment No. 2 to article VI, section 2 of the state constitution, which the 1895 legislature had proposed.⁹⁸ The vote was 12,126 to 6,282, and the state Supreme Court held that a majority of those voting on the question was enough.⁷ Today article VI, section 2 reads "Every male or female citizen of the United States, eighteen years old, ... is a qualified elector."⁹

The 1920 ratification

Governor Davis called a special session. Idaho ratified the Nineteenth Amendment on February 11, 1920. The House voted 52 to 0, and the Senate 29 to 6, according to the Morning Oregonian's same-day dispatch. The History of Woman Suffrage says the Senate had six opposing votes and that Dr. Emma F. A. Drake spoke in the House.¹⁴¹⁵¹³ The Oregonian dispatch counted Idaho as the "10th state" to ratify, a figure this lesson could not reconcile with the order in the Wikipedia list, where Idaho is 30th.¹⁵¹⁰

What was not found

Not confirmed: the full Idaho legislative journals for the 1920 session; the name of the Idaho Supreme Court case in 1896; and Idaho's ratification of or action on the Equal Rights Amendment, which this lesson did not research.

Where This Shows Up for Officials, Reporters and Citizens

The county clerk and the registration form

A clerk in an invented Idaho county is asked whether a married woman may register under her own name. The state constitution says "every male or female citizen" who meets the age, residence and registration rules is an elector, and the Nineteenth Amendment bars denial on account of sex. The clerk applies the same qualifications to everyone.⁹²

The reporter and the "first" claim

A reporter writes that Idaho was the first state to give women the vote. The Congressional Research Service lists Wyoming (1869) and Colorado (1893), then Utah and Idaho (1896). Idaho's year is correct, and "first" is not.³

The historical society and the ratification date

A local historical society hosts a talk on the 1920 ratification. The date is February 11, 1920. The talk can note that vote counts come from a newspaper and a movement history, and that the legislative journals should be checked before anyone prints a number.¹³¹⁵

The candidate and the school board

A candidate in an invented school district asks whether women could vote in school elections before 1920. In Idaho the answer is yes from 1896, because the state amendment covered electors generally. A reporter would check the state's constitutional text and the date of the amendment.⁹

Related Modules

Related lessons: The Fifteenth Amendment (the earlier voting amendment, which omitted sex); The Fourteenth Amendment (citizenship, the basis of the argument in Minor); Voting and the Later Amendments (the overview of Amendments 15 to 26); Amending the Constitution (Article V); The Eighteenth Amendment (ratified the same period, with the same ratification-by-legislature rule); and Federalism and the States.

Sources & Further Reading

Primary Sources

• National Archives: Amendments 11-27 (text of the Nineteenth Amendment)
• National Archives: 19th Amendment
• National Park Service: Declaration of Sentiments
• Minor v. Happersett, 88 U.S. 162 (1875), govinfo
• Leser v. Garnett, 258 U.S. 130 (1922), govinfo
• Morning Oregonian, February 12, 1920 (Idaho ratification)

Secondary Sources and Further Reading

• Congressional Research Service R45805: The Nineteenth Amendment
• Wikipedia: Nineteenth Amendment (secondary)
• Wikipedia: Fifteenth Amendment (secondary)
• The Clio: Women's Suffrage in Idaho (secondary)
• National Park Service: Idaho and the 19th Amendment

Idaho Law and Records

• Idaho Constitution and amendment table (Secretary of State)
• Idaho Session Laws 1895 (Internet Archive)

Related Training Modules

• The Fifteenth Amendment
• The Fourteenth Amendment
• Voting and the Later Amendments
• Amending the Constitution
• The Eighteenth Amendment
• Federalism and the States

Footnotes

1. National Park Service, Declaration of Sentiments (Seneca Falls, 1848): "We hold these truths to be self-evident; that all men and women are created equal"; "He has never permitted her to exercise her inalienable right to the elective franchise."; "Having deprived her of this first right of a citizen, the elective franchise, thereby leaving her without representation in the halls of legislation, he has oppressed her on all sides."
2. U.S. National Archives, The Constitution: Amendments 11-27 (Amendment XIX: "Passed by Congress June 4, 1919. Ratified August 18, 1920.").
3. Congressional Research Service, R45805, The Nineteenth Amendment: Women's Right to Vote (via EveryCRSReport). Congressional votes: Senate 16 to 34 (January 25, 1887); House 274 to 136 (January 10, 1918); Senate 53 to 31 (October 1, 1918); Senate 55 to 29 (February 10, 1919); House 304 to 89 (May 21, 1919); Senate 56 to 25 (June 4, 1919). Illinois, Michigan and Wisconsin ratified first, on June 10, 1919; Tennessee was the 36th state, on August 18, 1920. The report lists full suffrage in 15 states before the amendment: Wyoming 1869, Colorado 1893, Utah 1896, Idaho 1896, Washington 1910, California 1911, Arizona, Kansas and Oregon 1912, Montana and Nevada 1914, New York 1917, and Michigan, Oklahoma and South Dakota 1918.
4. Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution (Wikipedia, secondary source, read October 2026): the amendment's omission of sex was a source of conflict in the suffrage movement, which divided into the National Woman Suffrage Association and the American Woman Suffrage Association; the two rejoined in the 1890s.
5. Minor v. Happersett, 88 U.S. 162 (1875), official text (govinfo). The CHIEF JUSTICE (Waite) delivered the opinion. Virginia L. Minor, a citizen of Missouri, sued the registrar who refused to register her. The Court held, "unanimously of the opinion that the Constitution of the United States does not confer the right of suffrage upon any one, and that the constitutions and laws of the several States which commit that important trust to men alone are not necessarily void."
6. The Clio, "Women's Suffrage in Idaho" (secondary source): a territorial suffrage proposal in 1871 failed on a tie, and the suffragist Abigail Scott Duniway spoke in Idaho in 1887 and 1889. These details are from a secondary entry and were not checked against territorial records.
7. Susan B. Anthony and Ida Husted Harper, eds., History of Woman Suffrage, vol. IV (1902), chapter on Idaho, Project Gutenberg edition, full text on the Internet Archive. The first suffrage society was formed on May 16, 1893 at Hagerman, with Mrs. Elizabeth Ingram as president; Mrs. Rebecca Mitchell of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union asked for the 1893 bill, which was defeated "by only two votes"; the 1894 Republican convention adopted a suffrage plank introduced by Hon. W. E. Borah; the joint resolution passed "unanimously in the Senate on January 11, and by 33 yeas, 2 nays in the House on Jan. 17, 1895"; on election day the vote was "12,126 votes in favor of the amendment and 6,282 against it, a majority of 5,844"; and the state Supreme Court (Judges Isaac N. Sullivan, Joseph W. Huston and John T. Morgan) "rendered a unanimous decision that a majority of those voting on the question was sufficient to carry it." The volume also reports that about 40 percent of the 1898 vote was cast by women and that three women were elected to the legislature that year (Clara Campbell, Hattie Noble and Mary Allen Wright), and Permeal French was elected State superintendent of public instruction. This is a movement history written by participants and is a secondary source.
8. Idaho Session Laws, 1895 (Third Session), Senate Joint Resolution No. 2, p. 232, approved January 21, 1895, Internet Archive full text, proposing the amendment of article VI, section 2 of the Idaho Constitution.
9. Idaho Secretary of State, Idaho Constitution with the table of amendments. Amendment No. 2 (art. VI, sec. 2), proposed 1895 (S.L. p. 232, S.J.R. 2), ratified November 3, 1896. The current text of art. VI, sec. 2 reads: "Every male or female citizen of the United States, eighteen years old, who has resided in this state, and in the county where he or she offers to vote for the period provided by law, if registered as provided by law, is a qualified elector."
10. Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution (Wikipedia, secondary source, read October 2026): the state-by-state ratification list and dates; Tennessee's Senate vote of 25 to 4 on August 13, 1920; the House's two 48 to 48 votes on tabling, and Representative Harry Burn's yes vote on August 18, 1920, with 50 of 99 House members voting yes; the later ratifications by the remaining states, ending with Mississippi on March 22, 1984; and the summary of Leser v. Garnett and Fairchild v. Hughes. The Tennessee details rest on this secondary source only and were not checked against the Tennessee legislative journals.
11. U.S. National Archives, 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution: Women's Right to Vote (1920): Secretary of State Bainbridge Colby certified the ratification on August 26, 1920.
12. Leser v. Garnett, 258 U.S. 130 (decided February 27, 1922), official text (govinfo) (Brandeis, J.). Mary Randolph and Cecilia Waters were registered as voters in Baltimore on October 12, 1920; Oscar Leser sued to strike their names "on the sole ground" that they were women and the Maryland constitution limited the suffrage to men. The syllabus holds that the argument that a great addition to the electorate, made without a State's consent, destroys its political autonomy "applies no more to the Nineteenth Amendment than to the Fifteenth Amendment, which is valid beyond question"; and the opinion states that "the function of a state legislature in ratifying a proposed amendment to the Federal Constitution, like the function of Congress in proposing the amendment, is a federal function derived from the Federal Constitution; and it transcends any limitations sought to be imposed by the people of a State." The Court also noted that Connecticut and Vermont had since adopted ratification resolutions. A summary of the Court's vote as unanimous is from Wikipedia and was not checked in the report.
13. National Park Service, Idaho and the 19th Amendment: Idaho ratified on February 11, 1920.
14. Ida Husted Harper, ed., History of Woman Suffrage, vol. VI (1922), chapter XI, Idaho, full text on the Internet Archive: "Governor Davis called a special session to ratify the Federal Suffrage Amendment Feb. 11, 1920. It was carried unanimously in the House, after Dr. Emma F. A. Drake ... made a strong and logical speech introducing the resolution. It was carried in the Senate but had six opposing votes." The chapter, by the state librarian of the Idaho Free Travelling Library, is a secondary source.
15. The Morning Oregonian (Portland), February 12, 1920, Historic Oregon Newspapers: "BOISE, Idaho, Feb. 11. ... The ratification resolution was passed by the senate by a vote of 29 to 6, but was unanimously approved in the house, 52 voting for it." The dispatch calls Idaho "the 10th state" to ratify, a count this lesson could not reconcile with the later lists (see the Wikipedia list order cited above), and it says six senators voted no. The dispatch is a newspaper report.
16. Fairchild v. Hughes, 258 U.S. 126 (argued January 23, 1922; decided February 27, 1922), official text (govinfo) (Brandeis, J.). Charles S. Fairchild of New York sued the Secretary of State and the Attorney General to have the Nineteenth Amendment declared void and to stop its proclamation. The syllabus holds that the general right of a citizen to have the government administered according to law "does not entitle him to institute in the federal courts a suit to secure by indirection a determination whether a statute, if passed, or a constitutional amendment about to be adopted, will be valid," and that the suit was not a case within Article III, section 2.