February 26, 2022

100 years ago today, the Supreme Court rejected a challenge to the 19th Amendment.

The case was Leser v. Garnett, 258 U.S. 130, with Justice Brandeis writing for the Court:

On October 12, 1920, Cecilia Street Waters and Mary D. Randolph, citizens of Maryland, applied for and were granted registration as qualified voters in Baltimore City. To have their names stricken from the list Oscar Leser and others brought this suit in the court of common pleas. The only ground of disqualification alleged was that the applicants for registration were women, whereas the Constitution of Maryland limits the suffrage to men.

Ratification of the proposed amendment to the federal Constitution, now known as the Nineteenth, 41 Stat. 362, had been proclaimed on August 26, 1920, 41 Stat. 1823, pursuant to Revised Statutes, § 205 (Comp. St. § 303).... Whether the Nineteenth Amendment has become part of the federal Constitution is the question presented for decision....

The first contention... is that so great an addition to the electorate, if made without the state's consent, destroys its autonomy as a political body....

Maryland had not voted to ratify. The "great addition... to the electorate" was all the women. 

But the amendment was passed according to the provisions of the U.S. Constitution, and there was no special exception for amendments that greatly add to the electorate, as already shown by the acceptance of the 15th Amendment outlawing race discrimination in voting.

The suggestion that the Fifteenth was incorporated in the Constitution, not in accordance with law, but practically as a war measure which has been validated by acquiescence, cannot be entertained. 

ADDED: It is still amazing to think that freed male slaves got the right to vote in 1870 and it took another half century before women got the same right. Equally amazing, some Americans still say that women should not have the right to vote. Perhaps some of that talk is in jest, but I never hear anyone say — even in jest — that the right to vote should not extend to black people.

34 comments:

Doug said...

Repeal the Nineteenth.

Gahrie said...

Just for the record, it is not in jest when I say it. It brings me no pleasure to do so. There are many women I respect, and I have no problem with working with and for women. I quite literally love women.

However.

It is a sad reality that most women are simply unable to vote in a rational manner. This is compounded by the fact that the Democrats and MSM know this, and exploit it for political gain.

rcocean said...

Huh? Women in Wyoming got the vote in 1890. Washington and Utah gave women the vote in the 1890s. Women actually got the vote in Utah and wyoming Territory in the 1870s.

People expected females to flock to these western states where they could vote, but soon found out that women wanted to stay back East safe and comfy and NOT vote.

I don't think giving women the vote has made the USA a better place. You have large numbers of smart informed women, but on the whole its increased the low information, Stupid vote. Which is why we got the 19th Admendment. Think of much harder it would be for the power elite to manipulate the American voters, if only men voted!

In a perfect world, we wouldn't have one man, one vote. But if we're going to stick with that, why not have women vote in state/local elections, and only have men vote in Federal elections. How many women cast informed votes on Defense, foreign policy, economics or law and order issues?

TheDopeFromHope said...


"It is still amazing to think that freed male slaves got the right to vote in 1870 and it took another half century before women got the same right." Why? Democrats, of course.

Dems Revise History Regarding the 19th Amendment
It was introduced by the GOP in 1878 and the Dems fought it for 40 years.

Elizabeth Warren, for example, tweeted: “People always say that big change is impossible. That’s what they told the suffragettes — but they got organized, persisted, & 100 years ago today, the Senate passed the 19th Amendment to give women the right to vote.” What Warren conveniently forgets is that the people who said it was “impossible” were Democrats. Her party blocked passage of the amendment from 1878, when it was introduced by the Republicans, until the latter won such huge majorities in the 1918 midterms that the Democrats were no longer able to deny women justice.

https://spectator.org/dems-revise-history-regarding-the-19th-amendment/

rhhardin said...

If women voted like men, it wouldn't matter. But they don't.

rhhardin said...

What I proposed was some self-awareness in women that feelings take over and it's not good for large systems like governments. Feelings don't think it through, what happens when this or that change is made besides the effect that you felt was wanted.

Great in neighbornoods, where everybody can readjust and revise when something doesn't work, bad in huge systems.

rhhardin said...

As for the women's movement, it's been marching in place for more than a hundred years. See the first few pages of Derrida's interview with Christine MacDonald "Choreographies."

Doug said...

What Gahrie said.

Readering said...

Naturally African-American men got the vote first. They had credentials from governing their wives. Eventually it was realized wives gained the necessary credentials from freely choosing which men were to govern them as husbands.

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

rhhardin hardest hit 😅

Ice Nine said...

Lighting the rhhardin beacon...

Roger Sweeny said...

One reason it took so long was that it was assumed that women would vote the same way their husbands or fathers did. Since the husbands and fathers already had the vote ...

And in fact, for a long time, there was very little "gender gap".

gilbar said...

i think that men/women white/black even Young/Old should make NO DIFFERENCE
Any Landowner should be able to vote.
You're Paying Property Taxes, you should be heard

Two-eyed Jack said...

The 15th was incorporated as a war.measure, after the failure of the 13th and 14th to induce the South to find an acceptable modus vivendi with the liberated blacks. It fell into disuse as the North tired of the sustained hostilities and was largely ignored until the modern civil rights era, including the time at which the Supremes we're not entertaining these truths.

n.n said...

Until the 14th, the Constitution did not exercise liberal license to indulge diversity [dogma] philosophy of affirmative discrimination by color or sex. It was an unforced error with progressive consequences for the equal rights, not rites, of men and women.

Breezy said...

Remember, we are all supposed to disagree on some things and agree on others. It is not irrational to have a different opinion, or different issue priorities for your vote.

robother said...

AnnaLyn McCord makes a strong case against the wisdom of the Nineteenth Amendment. But if we follow that logic, what do we do when Rod McKuen tries to register to vote? When it comes to Gen X and successor Gens, who will separate the men from the soy-boys? We'd need ten million Solomons to act as election judges.

Ampersand said...

The moral case for women's suffrage seems unarguable to me. It is intriguing that the cultural consensus was, not so long ago, opposite.

It also seems inarguable that, since the advent of universal adult suffrage, there have been a number of electoral outcomes that were determined by the presence of women voters. It would be interesting to see a well sourced study of which elections were altered by female participation. Perhaps this kind of feedback would hold men and women up to a cruel mirror. Self-reflection can be a source of growth.

Humperdink said...

Repeal the 19th? A large number of transexuals would need to re-think their position.

rcocean said...

There is no "Moral Case" for women voting. Its all just a matter of politics. Lets just stick to the USA. The vast majority of women in the 19th century didn't give a damn about voting. And 40% don't give a damn today, because they don't vote.

But if women had truly wanted to vote before 1920, they would've done what American women had always done. They would've nagged their husbands and fathers until they got their way. The real reason you had women sufferage is because the Left wanted it.
The liberal/left saw that women would vote in favor of more government regulation, more welfare, more social justice.

And the power elite saw that that women were more conservative in the status quo "don't rock the boat" sort of way. Women don't lead Revolutions. They don't lead trucker strikes. They don't threaten the elite. As Coulter quipped "If women were in charge, we'd still be back in Europe, riding horses, and being ruled by Royalty".

Morality? There is no "Morality" in who gets to vote.

n.n said...

The Constitution never discriminated by color or sex, but the execrable, lamentable practice of diversity [dogma], inequity, and exclusion, was inferred in its penumbras and emanations in several democratic districts, which required a uniform ruling to clarify its original intent.

Lurker21 said...

It is still amazing to think that freed male slaves got the right to vote in 1870 and it took another half century before women got the same right.

Is that really so amazing compared to the fact that it took almost a century for many of those African-American men almost a century to be able to use that right?

That's a "damned if you do, damned if you don't" topic with no good answer. I don't want to follow either the early feminists who claimed they were more entitled to the vote than Black men because they were more educated and refined, or their critics who asserted that men were naturally entitled to the vote and women weren't, so I'll give the question a good leaving alone.

Ampersand said...

"There is no "Morality" in who gets to vote."

Sex-segregated suffrage is premised upon the existence of some relevant intellectual, moral, or social difference between the sexes that provides ethical justification for giving one of the two sexes a monopoly in the exercise of the power to choose elected representatives.

Once upon a time, people could come up with justifications founded upon biology, technology, the religious consensus, etc. Those justifications have withered away. If you can't justify male-only voting by reference to some generally accepted moral criterion, the moral case for equal suffrage rights for women is inarguable.

ken in tx said...

White people know they can't make jokes about Black people--voting or otherwise. Only Black people can do that. Jokes about women have been curtailed too, but not as much. BTW, my mother said (no joke) that she voted for JFK because he was good looking. That should be a rational enough reason for anyone.

Doug said...

The common sense case for repealing the nineteenth is, look what the hell they've done!

Josephbleau said...

What is worse is that the constitutional convention did not have an equal number of women delegates, so our whole constitution is illegal under the 14th amendment, as women were deprived of their right to assent to the terms of government.

Readering said...

My Irish Catholic Mom voted for Nixon 4 times because her Dad and husband told her to. Then surprised to have found she raised 5 Democrats.

tds said...

there should be a number of a mid-sized countries in the West intentionally left without women's right to vote. Just to compare the outcomes. US could draw some states internally for the same purpose.

Ernest said...

Some of the comments in this thread attempt to make the case that women are unduly influenced by their emotions when voting. This is based on a false premise that men are not biased by feelings. We men may say we have no feelings, but that's just suppression, not a vacuum.

Gahrie said...

Some of the comments in this thread attempt to make the case that women are unduly influenced by their emotions when voting. This is based on a false premise that men are not biased by feelings.

That's incorrect. Men can be biased by emotions. That's why reason was invented, to create a process to minimize emotions in decision making. Women (like our host) explicitly reject reason and attempt to justify being controlled by their emotions instead.

There's a reason that every two years the Democratic Party's platform is: "The Republicans want to put women back in the kitchen, Black people back into chains and homosexuals back into the closet". It works.

How do you explain, the fact that an intelligent, educated law professor can participate in the obvious hoax rape allegations against Kavanaugh? (a sad rerun of the Thomas hearings. Wanna bet she believes Anita?) How do you explain the attack against Sandmann? Go back far enough, how do you explain crying at a discussion of states' rights?

Blair said...

The dirty secret of women's suffrage that nobody talks about now is that women wanted, and were given, the vote for one reason and one reason only: To ban the sale of alcoholic beverages.

Most of the suffragettes were lemon-lipped Christian moralists who would be appalled by their misappropriation at the hands of modern feminists. And indeed, much of what feminism has achieved over the last hundred years would possibly not have happened without prohibition - something nobody seriously advocates for today.

Tina Trent said...

Rcocean: none of your arguments are making sense today. Surprising.

Why didn't women rush off to Western territories to vote? In the 1870s?

Because they had to feed their children and support their families in the household. That says nothing about the desire for suffrage. It says a great deal about family formation, work duties, and the ideal of yeoman culture. I doubt you or I could manage life for long in frontier territories and states.

All social movements are run by a minority of the population, including those affecting men's rights to contract out of the peonage of tenancy and indentured servitude.

I'm more worried about leftist men than leftist women, because they control more of the real estate, as it were, over there. Sure the squad is a pain in the ass. But if you look at the people who have been hollowing out our country's ideals and fortitude against collectivism, the most powerful among them are men. And lots of turncoat GOPers too. And the Chamber of Commerce. All run by men.

MadTownGuy said...

My parents (if they were still with us) would probably be appalled at the current state of the Democratic Party. Mom was registered as a Republican, but most often voted (D) in national races; more so (R) on state and county races. She described herself as a 'bleeding-heart conservative. Dad was a dyed-in-the-wool Democrat, though when we were in SD on vacation he surprised me when he heard that George McGovern was speaking locally, Dad said he wouldn't cross the street to hear him talk. On his later years when dementia overtook him, but I believe he would have voted (D) as reliably as ever in the general elections. Given the choices we had in 2020 he might have voted independent as he did when Ross Perot ran, but that cycle was an outlier.

My take on all this is that you can't lay voting preferences totally on emotion for either biological sex. (Gender dysphorics, on the other hand, will probably vote with the party that says it cares about them; it remains to be seen if they will be treated as useful idiots if the hard left accedes to power.)

Uncle Don said...

Slavery was legal. We corrected that.
Women couldn't vote. We corrected that.
Abortion is legal. We'll correct that.