The 15th and 19th Amendments
giving Americans the right to vote (finally!)
The 15th Amendment
"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 race, color, or previous condition of servitude."
- Although ratified on February 3, 1870, the promise of the 15th Amendment would not be fully realized for almost a century.
- Through the use of poll taxes, literacy tests and other means, Southern states were able to effectively disenfranchise African Americans.
- It would take the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 before the majority of African Americans in the South were registered to vote.
Picture from a 1919 protest
Speaker Gillett Signing the Bill
Political Cartoon about the slaves' right to vote
The 19th Amendment
The Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution prohibits any United States citizen from denial to the right to vote on the basis of gender. It was ratified on August 18, 1920. The Constitution allows the states to determine the qualifications for voting, so until the 1910s most states did not allow women the right to vote. The amendment became a catalyst of change after the women's suffrage movement.
The Nineteenth Amendment was introduced by Senator Aaron A. Sargent in 1878. Forty-one years later, in 1919, Congress approved the amendment and submitted it to the states for ratification. It was ratified by the requisite number of states a year later, with Tennessee's ratification being the final vote needed to add the amendment to the Constitution.
The Right to Vote:
Four separate Amendments – the 15th, 19th, 24th, and 26th -use the same powerful language to our right to vote: “The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged . . . .” Of course, like every other constitutional right, the right to vote is subject to reasonable restrictions. Nevertheless, it’s just as much a constitutional right as any other embodied in our Constitution.