Even though the United States of America was founded on notions of liberty, democracy and equal opportunity, it's still vaguely absurd to think that women did not have the right to vote in elections for the first 144 years of this nation's existence. On this day in 1920, that all changed, as the 19th Amendment to the United States Constitution was ratified, forbidding any federal, state or local government body from denying a citizen the right to vote because of sex.
The road to ratification — an extremely difficult process as established by the Constitution — was long and winding. After a fight that began in the post-Civil War era, the amendment was first voted on by the House of Representatives in January of 1918 following an endorsement by President Woodrow Wilson (it narrowly passed). The Senate tabled the amendment until the fall, and when they finally did bring it up for debate, it was defeated by a handful of votes. That proved to be costly for anti-suffrage Senators, many of whom were defeated in the midterm elections that year because of a push by the increasingly powerful National Woman's Party. When the amendment was brought up again in the spring of 1919, it passed through both the House and the Senate by wide margins.
In order for an amendment to officially be added to the Constitution, it needs to be ratified by 75 percent of the state governments, so ratification officially occurred on this day in 1920, when the state of Tennessee officially signed off on it. It was a powerful victory for the rights of women in this country (though in many ways it was just the beginning). In honor of this momentous occasion, we salute the suffragette movement with Queen Latifah's "Ladies First."
I'm a voter. I've cast a ballot in every presidential election I've been eligible to, and I'm a firm believer in the power of filling in that little bubble for democracy (those touch screens can take a hike).