Page 11 - Delaware Lawyer - Winter 2019

by the end of the Civil War, 29 states had such protection. Delaware enacted such a law in 1873.5
A solution to the disenfranchisement problem presented itself when the Con- gress was considering an amendment to the Constitution which, as the third and last of the Reconstruction amendments, was offered to protect the franchise of black male voters. The proposal that be- came the 15th Amendment in 1870 says: “[t]he right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on ac- count of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.” The effort to include “sex” in the amendment was defeated because of concerns that permitting women’s suf- frage would enfranchise Southerners who were temporarily disenfranchised because of their support of the Confederacy.6
The suffragettes continued their work by attempting to vote; the goal was to have cases to litigate when they were then denied the right to vote. Virginia Mi- nor, a leader of the suffrage movement in Missouri, attempted to register to vote in 1872. She was refused because a Mis- souri law limited the right to vote to men.
Three suffragettes – Susan B. Anthony, Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton – are featured on
the Portrait Monument in the U.S. Capitol rotunda.
Finding no relief in the Missouri Supreme Court, she appealed her case to the U.S. Supreme Court. In the 1875 decision of Minor v. Happersett,7 the Court held that Minor was a citizen, but that the privi- leges of citizenship protected by the 14th Amendment did not include the right to vote.8
After Happersett, the suffrage move- ment proceeded with a two-pronged ap- proach: adding women’s suffrage to state laws, and proposing an amendment to the Constitution. Nineteen states and territo- ries allowed women’s suffrage in advance of the adoption of the 19th Amendment. When New York became the 12th state in 1917, it was the first eastern state to pass a women’s suffrage law.9
The work to achieve suffrage was a long, hard-fought effort that was waged by two principal groups — NAWSA, led in part by Susan B. Anthony, and the Na- tional Women’s Party, founded and led by Alice Paul, also a Quaker. Volumes have been written about the 72-year struggle that produced the 19th Amendment.
They were 72 years of hardship, indig- nity and abuse in many forms, including the illegal force-feeding of women in cus- tody who protested with hunger strikes.10
Woodrow Wilson, the President of the United States, did not support the suffragettes during his first term of of- fice, 1913-1917. The United States joined World War I shortly after the beginning
of his second term, on April 6, 1917. On September 30, 1918, after headlines about the wretched treatment of the suffragettes in custody and about women’s important role in supporting the war effort, Wilson finally spoke in support of suffrage: “We have made partners of the women in this war. ... Shall we admit them only to a partnership of suffering and sacrifice and toil and not to a partnership of privilege and right?” 11
The war ended November 11, 1918. The House of Representatives passed the Susan B. Anthony bill by the requisite two-third of members on May 21, 1919; the Senate passed it on June 4, 1919, and it went to the states for ratification. After ratification by the requisite number of states, the 19th Amendment became part of the U.S. Constitution on August 26, 1920. It states: “The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be de- nied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.” 12
On February 15, 1921, the 101st anni- versary of the birth of Susan B. Anthony, a celebration was held in the U.S. Capitol rotunda, a room which holds historical paintings and statues of former presidents and important people. The event, which more than 70 women’s organizations and members of Congress attended, included the unveiling of a large statue formally known as the Portrait Monument. It fea- tures the likenesses of three suffragettes — Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Lucretia Mott and Susan B. Anthony — and bore the inscription: “Woman first denied a soul, then called mindless, now arisen, declar- ing herself an entity to be reckoned.” 13
Alas, the passage of the 19th Amend- ment did not end the indignities. After the celebration, the inscription was removed from the Portrait Monument and it was moved to a service closet in the basement. In 1995, at a celebration of the amend- ment’s 75th anniversary, an effort com- menced to raise the $75,000 required to restore the statue to the rotunda. The ob- jection that it was too heavy was rejected by a study from an engineering firm. The objection that the ladies are not pretty received this response from Representa- tive Patricia Schroeder, a Colorado Dem-
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