United States v. Anthony

Though considered fundamental to political equality and representative government, suffrage, the right to vote, has been difficult to achieve by many in the United States. Originally, only free white men with property held the right.

The first women's rights convention, convened in 1848 in Seneca Falls, New York, made suffrage their primary goal. In 1869 two national advocacy organizations formed. The National Woman Suffrage Association, led by Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony, proposed a woman's suffrage amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The American Woman Suffrage Association, led by Lucy Stone, worked to influence individual states. By the end of the nineteenth century only four states had granted full suffrage to women. In 1890 the two groups merged into the National American Women's Suffrage Association led by Carry Chapman Catt. By 1919 with 27 states granting full or limited suffrage and women having manned the home front during World War I, Congress felt increased pressure to act. Suffragists participated in marches, picketing, vigils, and hunger strikes. Finally, in 1920 the Nineteenth Amendment granted women suffrage.

Not until 1965, a century after the Civil War and in the midst of the civil rights movement did Congress pass the landmark Voters' Rights Act guaranteeing blacks the right to vote as well.