Today, Explained - Who gets to vote?

Episode Date: March 16, 2021

It’s a question the US has struggled with since its founding. Transcript at vox.com/todayexplained. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Gambling problem? Call 1-866-531-2600 or visit connectsontario.ca. It's Today Explained. I'm Halima Shah sitting in for Sean Ramos-Furham. On this vote, the yeas are 220 and the nays are 210. The bill is passed. This month, the House passed one of the biggest voting rights bills since the civil rights era. If it passes, states would have to automatically register all voters, and Americans would have more time to vote.

But this bill has a tough road to the president's desk. It's unlikely to make it through the Senate. And this is all happening in the wake of 2020, when former President Trump falsely claimed that the election was stolen from him. And state houses are responding by making it harder to vote. The fight over who gets to vote has raged on for a long time in this country. When we celebrated the 100th anniversary of women's suffrage last August, Sean had a conversation with historian Robin Muncy.

She said the fight over voting rights dates back to the country's inception. The work of being a democratic citizen is never-ending and relentless. The kinds of struggles that we are having right now over voting rights, we have been having since the founding of the republic. They are endemic to our democracy. Some people could be depressed by that. But if we look at the history of the struggles of women for voting rights, we see courage and strength and relentlessness. And that is our path forward, too. When exactly does the story of women's suffrage in the United States start?

I think it starts at the founding of the republic. In 1776, New Jersey adopted a constitution that said that all inhabitants, inhabitants with a certain amount of personal property could vote. And it was personal property, not real property. It wasn't real estate. So you could have a bunch of furniture and clothes that added up to the 50 pounds or whatever it was. And that language meant that African-Americans, women, new immigrants, all were eligible to vote in New Jersey in the late 18th century. And they did. We have evidence that's just turned up in the last few months, actually, of women voting in New Jersey in the late 18th and early 19th centuries.

We know that they were accepted as voters because there are subsequent voting laws that refer to voters as he or she in New Jersey. But in 1807, the state rescinded those voting rights from African Americans and women. Really? They took it away? They took it away. And women in New Jersey would not then be voting on the same basis as men until the ratification of the 19th Amendment. And just to be clear here, this situation in New Jersey that was relatively short-lived, it was exceptional. There weren't a lot of other states in this new union who were allowing African Americans, women, to vote. That's right.

And it is emblematic of the history of women's suffrage and suffrage in general in the United States. It shows us what a piecemeal, patchy, raggedy process this has been. And there are reversals along the way. And I think that these are often left out of our understanding of voting rights and other movements in U.S. history, that people get the vote and lose the vote, get the vote and lose the vote, is absolutely a common theme in the history of voting rights in the United States. That a right once gained is not necessarily retained except through struggle. And where does the struggle go once women's right to vote is taken away in New Jersey in the early 19th century? I would say the next stage in this history

is that first half of the 19th century and the emergence of these widespread and varied reform movements like the anti-slavery movement, like the temperance movement, like the moral reform movement, those movements that emerge and become so powerful in the early 19th century are really the kind of cauldron out of which women's suffrage is going to bubble. And when is the movement sort of born in earnest? It doesn't become an independent women's movement, suffrage movement in the U.S. until after the Civil War, say 1860s. But there's a women's rights movement.

There are women's rights conventions that begin in the 1840s. The most famous one is the Seneca Falls Convention of 1848, which is organized by Elizabeth Cady Stanton and some of her other friends and famously attended by Frederick Douglass, the great anti-slavery activist and orator. One of the interesting things that took us a while to kind of come to grips with is that at that Seneca Falls Convention, which is so famous and often cited as the beginning of the

women's suffrage movement, there's a set of resolutions that are adopted by the 300 attendees. We are assembled to protest against a form of government existing without the consent of the governed, to declare our right to be free as man is free, to be represented in the government which we are taxed to support, to have such disgraceful laws as give man the power to chastise and imprison his wife, to take the wages which she earns, the property which she inherits, and, in case of separation, the children of her love,

forever erased from our statute books. There's this whole list of resolutions, and among that list is the desire for the enfranchisement of women. Resolved that it is the duty of the women of this country to secure to themselves their sacred right to the elective franchise. That is the only resolution that did not pass unanimously.

So that in the beginning, suffrage is actually not at the top of the list of women's rights activists' desires. Why is that not at the top of the list? women's rights activists' desires. Why is that not at the top of the list? Things like access to your own wages. I mean, at that point in the 1840s, married women who worked for wages didn't own their own wages. They belonged to their husbands.

Their property, any property went to your husband. You didn't have custody of your children. You couldn't make a will or sue in your own name because you were a dependent in the law. And those things seemed to have much more immediate consequences and meaning to women's daily lives than the vote. When and how does that begin to change? I mean, really, you get the formation of these independent organizations devoted to women's suffrage beginning in 1869. And it's still a really small group, but it grows dramatically in the 1880s when the Women's Christian Temperance Union

comes to support women's suffrage. So the fight for a right to vote is actually tied to control on alcohol. Yeah, because the use of alcohol in a lot of cases is destroying their homes because it leads to domestic violence. wagering people who don't have much money and often have seasonal jobs. Some women see the saloon as a place where men spend their money and then leave their families hungry in the off-season. And as the movement grows, what are the essential arguments that are being made? In the beginning, there's the argument based on justice. There are some women who make the claim that they're taxed without representation. This is especially true of widows or independent women who have property, who have jobs, who do own their own wages, and who are taxed just like men, but they have no say in the government and the way that their taxes are spent. In the 19th century, there are also arguments that because women are different from men, they have special interests and special skills on issues that have to do with things like schools. And so one of the interesting things that emerges in the 19th century is a movement to enfranchise women only in school board elections.

And one of the earliest of those laws is in Kentucky in 1838, because women are associated with the care of children, the nurturance of children. And so the argument is made, look, you know, women ought to have say here. And by the time we get to 1900, I think something like half the states have enfranchised some women, at least, in some elections. And school board elections are the most common. So the argument is working on a local level before it's working on a national level. Yes, absolutely. And it's really important to understanding how political change actually happens in the United States. Sometimes we claim that American women won the vote in 1920, but that is so not true.

Millions of American women had the vote before 1920, and millions were still disfranchised after 1920. So the states are enfranchising women in the late 19th century and in the early 20th, and those women have full voting rights in 15 states. And in 12 other states, women are enfranchised before the ratification, at least in presidential elections. So that means in over half of the states, women are enfranchised at least in presidential elections before the ratification of the 19th Amendment. And you can just watch, as more women are fully active in electoral politics through their state action,

the number of votes for the federal amendment increases in Congress. And in a way, the 19th Amendment is evidence of women's existing political power, as well as a generator of more of it. After the break, the ratification of the 19th Amendment and the long fight for women's suffrage that comes after it. Support for Today Explained comes from Ramp.

Ramp is the corporate card and spend management software designed to help you save time and put money back in your pocket. Ramp says they give finance teams unprecedented control and insight into company spend. With Ramp, you're able to issue cards to every employee with limits and restrictions and automate expense reporting so you can stop wasting time at the end of every month. And now you can get $250 when you join Ramp. You can go to ramp.com. Ramp.com. Cards issued by Sutton Bank. Member FDIC. Terms and conditions apply. Professor, we get to the 20th century. Some women have the right to vote in the United States. A lot of women still don't. How does the movement change and pick up steam in the 20th century? I think the most important change that emerges in the early 20th century is the dramatically increased size and diversity of the movement itself. By the 1910s, the women's suffrage

movement has become a multiracial, multiethnic, cross-class, mass movement. African American women, Native American women, Chinese immigrant, as well as Chinese American women, Latinas, and working class women are all in the struggle along with white and middle class women. And they're not making the case that, look, we need the vote to help all these other people. They say we need the vote for self-protection. The reason that we work under hideous conditions, the reason that our factories are not safe, the reason that we work these god-awful long hours, that we are paid hideous wages, is because we don't have the vote. And they're publishing newspapers, they're engaging in soapbox speeches

or open car speeches by the time we get to the early 20th century. They begin to make movies. They publish cookbooks. Cookbooks? Cookbooks, the women's suffrage cookbook. They have songs. They create songs. They write songs. They write plays. What's in the women's suffrage cookbook? Okay, so it's not that they're sort of like ballot biscuits or anything. Nothing quite like that. But that women who support suffrage are retaining their commitment to certain domestic skills. Women are not going to all leave the kitchen the minute they gain suffrage. Really, look at these fabulous meals that they can put on the table.

Sign of the times, I suppose. Yes, absolutely. What about the songs? Tell me about the songs. I wish I could sing you one of the songs. I deeply regret that I can't, you know, take my ukulele there and bring it over and sing one of those songs for you. But there's some of them are funny. Oh, dear, what can the matter be? Dear, dear, what can the matter be? Oh, dear, what can the matter be? Women are wanting to vote.

And some of them are quite serious. You know, they're patriotic. Some of them have kind of a religious tone to them. Shout, shout, out with your song. Cry with the wind, for the dawn is breaking. And of of course they're also organizing huge parades. There are famous ones in New York and D.C., but there are parades all over the country, rallies of all kinds. And the tactics, the very famous tactics,

of the suffrage movement in the 1910s is picketing the White House. And suffragists were actually the first to picket the White House. Really? Yes. I hope they weren't tear gassed. They were not tear gassed, but they were, of course, some of them were jailed and they were force fed, and it was pretty ugly.

Force fed? Because some of them went on hunger strikes. And that generated a lot of very bad press for the Wilson administration and for opponents, actually, of suffrage. Women have reared all the sons of the brave. Women have shared in the burdens they gave. Women have labored your country to save. That's why they're wanting to vote. So it's oh dear, what can the matter be? Dear, dear, what can the matter be? Oh dear, what can the matter be when men want every vote?

Let's get to the moment we've all been waiting for. What does August 18th, 1920 look like? What is it like the day this actually happens? Oh, it's totally amazing. So the focus that day is on Tennessee, because Tennessee is potentially going to be the 36th state to ratify the 19th Amendment. And it took 36 to reach the three quarters of the states to ratify. The Senate has already voted yes, but it looks like there are not going to be enough votes in the House. And at the last minute, a young man named Harry Burns, who had said he's committed to voting against this, gets a letter from his mother who says, be a good boy, Harry, be sure to help out the suffragists. And on the request of his sainted mother,

Harry Burns votes for ratification. And of course, people present go wild. Shout, shout, howling a song. Cry with the wind, for the dawn is breaking. Because this means that the 19th Amendment is now a part of the U.S. Constitution. And is there a tangible change in the country overnight, or does it take much longer? It is the case that millions of women did, as a result of the 19th Amendment, become fully enfranchised. It's a huge milestone in American democracy.

There's just no question about that. But it was not a complete victory because millions of women were still barred from the polls after passage of the 19th Amendment. Who are we talking about? Who's not included? The language of the amendment was that no state or the federal government could deny the vote on the basis of sex. All the women in Puerto Rico were citizens of the United States, and they did not win enfranchisement from the 19th Amendment because the territories are not mentioned. Literate women are enfranchised in Puerto Rico in 1929, but it's not until 1935 that all adult Puerto Rican women in Puerto Rico exercised the vote. Asian immigrant women also gained nothing from the 19th Amendment because Asians were not eligible to naturalize. And so

because they were not citizens or allowed to become citizens, they also did not benefit from the 19th Amendment. And they're not going to benefit until we get to 1952, when all Asian groups are allowed to naturalize. Also, Native American women. In 1920, when the amendment is ratified, maybe half of Native American women, most of whom lived on reservations, were not considered citizens of the U.S., and so also gained nothing from the 19th Amendment. Many, many states continued to deny the vote to Indians living on reservations by claiming that they were wards of the state or that they weren't really residents of the state, they were residents of the reservation. And I think it's Utah that continues to explicitly exclude Native Americans from the polls into the

1950s. And of course, the most famous and the biggest group denied the vote after 1920 were African American women in the South. And this is a really important aspect of our story, because African American women in those southern states who went to try to register and were turned away, continued to try to register and try to register. And they sent protests to the president and they sent protests to the attorney general of the United States. The Department of Justice has files full of these letters from African-American women in the South saying, I know I have the right to vote on the basis of the 14th, the 15th, and the 19th Amendment. But I'm being denied. What are you going to do about it? Mr. Chairman and to the Credentials Committee,

it was the 31st of August in 1962 that 18 of us traveled 26 miles to the county courthouse in Indianola to try to register to become first class citizens. We was met in Indianola by policemen... Most famously probably Fannie Lou Hamer as a voting rights activist in the South in the 1960s. And the activism over decades and decades results, of course, in the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and the 1964 constitutional amendment that abolished the poll tax. I was carried to the county jail and put in the booking room. As I was placed in the cell, I began to hear sounds of licks and screams. So, though we're celebrating the 100-year anniversary of women's suffrage in the United States, in truth, the fight took much longer, decades longer than August 18th, 1920, and arguably continues today. Absolutely, it continues today.

Absolutely, it continues today. And I think that that is such a crucial point, Sean, because I think one of the lessons of this history is that struggles over women's suffrage and voting rights in general began with the founding of the republic and continue to this day. This is a central issue within American political culture. It will always be an issue. This is something I think that will never be decided once and for all. We will always be struggling over this, and we need to keep that struggle alive. I've been reading in the papers of a very funny land. It's the land where the women wear the trousers. Where woman is the boss and poor old man is second hand.

In the land where the women wear the trousers. We'll always be struggling and thus are forever suffering. Is that why they call them the suffragettes or is that just a coincidence? Yeah, it actually comes from a Latin word meaning giving consent or voting. But the confusion with suffering is constant. And when I first started teaching, for instance, and I would say, and now women started fighting for suffrage,

I actually would have students ask, why didn't women want to suffer more? Poor old suffragettes. I? Poor old suffragette. I've got to suffragette. My wife's a suffragette. I've heard it all and I'm suffering yet. In the land where the women were the proudest. Well, Professor Muncy, thank you for the reminder. You're so welcome.

Thank you for having me on your show. Professor Robin Muncy, she teaches history at the University of Maryland. I'm Sean Ramos-Ferrum MDS is Today Explained.