Whether we realize it or not, our lives are all influenced by the political system. Our lives are impacted in thousands of ways by the things the government does or does not do. But this is not a one-sided equation. In the United States, the government does not simply affect the people. The people create the government by electing leaders who make decisions on their behalf. Many citizens choose not to be informed or to participate. But, as Abraham Lincoln declared, American government is “of the people, by the people, for the people.” If the people don’t know what is going on and hold their leaders accountable, the system simply will not work. This is why voting is so important, and why it is not only a privilege for us to vote—allowing us to have an influence over new laws and new leaders—but also a responsibility.
The formal requirements for voting in the United States are simple. Anyone who is a citizen of the United States of America and at least eighteen years of age is eligible to vote. The voting rules in the U.S. are different in every state, but every state but one (North Dakota) requires voters to register to vote. Most states require registration a reasonable number of days before the election (usually thirty days). The primary objective of the registration requirement is to prevent fraudulent2 voting. A secondary effect of requiring voters to register is that it often encourages only those who are interested and attentive to vote. A month or more before Election Day, a voter must find out where to register and then go there and register or he or she will not be able to vote on Election Day. Registering to vote, however, was made much easier with the passage of the Motor Voter Act of 1993, which allows citizens to register to vote when they renew their driver’s licenses, register their cars, or visit local, state, or national government offices for other purposes. Thirty-seven states allow online voter registration. All states allow absentee voting. For more information about registering to vote, visit US.gov/register-to-vote.
The right to vote is sometimes referred to as suffrage. Suffrage in the United States is currently enjoyed by all citizens over the age of eighteen, as noted. However, this has not always been the case. In the early years of the republic, the eligible electorate3 consisted primarily of white male property owners. States gradually relaxed property-ownership requirements until all white males twenty-one years or older were allowed to vote.
After the Civil War, the right to vote was extended to all male citizens, regardless of race, by the Fifteenth Amendment to the Constitution. The Women’s Suffrage Movement succeeded with the Nineteenth Amendment and the extension of the right to vote to women (some states already allowed women to vote, but the Amendment required all states to do so). The Twenty-Third Amendment allotted electoral votes to the District of Columbia (Washington, DC), thereby giving its residents the right to vote in presidential elections. And the Twenty-Sixth Amendment, ratified in 1971, granted the right to vote to every citizen who is eighteen years of age or older.
Simply because voting rights are extended by the Constitution, however, does not mean they are exercised. Most notably, black voters did not fully enjoy the right to vote for many years after the ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment (the abolishment of slavery) because of intimidation, discrimination, and tactics such as literacy tests and poll taxes. Moreover, many people who have the right to vote simply choose not to exercise it. Millions of eligible voters have not even registered to vote. In fact, only half of all eligible voters even bother to turn out on Election Day. Why is this so? There are several possible explanations. The following are some commonly offered explanations for nonvoting:
Whatever their reasons, when people make the choice not to vote, it simply makes the votes of those who do show up more influential.
Because voting is such a privilege, people have fought for their right to vote since before this nation was first established. Do you remember learning about the early colonial American phrase “No taxation without representation” in your history class? The issue that led to the Boston Tea Party (and that later helped to bring about the American Revolution) was the issue of voting rights. The people in America were being taxed by England as if they were regular citizens, even though they were not allowed to exercise the privileges of citizenship, including the right to have their concerns addressed by the leaders of England or even the right to elect their own leaders and have England recognize them. The early colonists had no say in what laws the English government passed on their behalf. Since the colonial time, many different groups of people have had to fight for their right to vote.
Susan B. Anthony, who lived in the 1800s, was a strong advocate of women’s rights. In those days, women were not allowed to vote. In fact, Anthony was at one time put in prison for having cast a vote in an election. In the following speech given by Anthony after being released from prison, she appeals to the Constitution to prove that women should be allowed to vote.
Susan B. Anthony was born on February 15, 1820, in Adams, Massachusetts. She learned how to read and write at the age of three but was taken out of public school after a teacher refused to teach her long division. After teaching for fifteen years, Anthony became an active voice as a labor activist, educational reformer, abolitionist, and women’s rights activist, with most of her efforts focusing on temperance.4
Anthony fought to win women the right to vote. Although her efforts finally paid off, it wasn’t until after Anthony’s death that women were given the right to vote. The Nineteenth Amendment, which enables women to exercise this great privilege, is also known as the Susan B. Anthony Amendment.
Friends and fellow citizens: I stand before you tonight under indictment5 for the alleged6 crime of having voted at the last presidential election, without having a lawful right to vote. It shall be my work this evening to prove to you that in thus voting, I not only committed no crime, but, instead, simply exercised my citizen’s rights, guaranteed to me and all United States citizens by the National Constitution, beyond the power of any state to deny.
The preamble of the Federal Constitution says:
“We, the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”
It was we, the people; not we, the white male citizens; nor yet we, the male citizens; but we, the whole people, who formed the Union. And we formed it, not to give the blessings of liberty, but to secure them; not to the half of ourselves and the half of our posterity, but to the whole people—women as well as men. And it is a downright mockery7 to talk to women of their enjoyment of the blessings of liberty while they are denied the use of the only means of securing them provided by this democratic-republican government—the ballot.
For any state to make sex a qualification that must ever result in the disfranchisement8 of one entire half of the people, is to pass a bill of attainder,9 or, an ex post facto10 law, and is therefore a violation of the supreme law of the land. By it the blessings of liberty are forever withheld from women and their female posterity.
To them this government has no just powers derived11 from the consent of the governed. To them this government is not a democracy. It is not a republic. It is an odious12 aristocracy;13 a hateful oligarchy14 of sex; the most hateful aristocracy ever established on the face of the globe; an oligarchy of wealth, where the rich govern the poor. An oligarchy of learning, where the educated govern the ignorant . . . might be endured; but this oligarchy of sex, which makes father, brothers, husband, sons, the oligarchs over the mother and sisters, the wife and daughters, of every household—which ordains all men sovereigns, all women subjects, carries dissension,15 discord,16 and rebellion into every home of the nation.
Webster,17 Worcester,18 and Bouvier19 all define a citizen to be a person in the United States, entitled to vote and hold office.
The only question left to be settled now is: Are women persons? And I hardly believe any of our opponents will have the hardihood to say they are not. Being persons, then, women are citizens; and no state has a right to make any law, or to enforce any old law, that shall abridge their privileges or immunities. Hence, every discrimination against women in the constitutions and laws of the several states is today null and void,20 precisely as is every one against Negroes.
I have a lot of respect for Susan B. Anthony because she stood up for what she believed, and she worked hard to gain the rights she was entitled to by the Constitution. Although she did not live long enough to see women gain the right to vote, her influence helped pave the way for the Nineteenth Amendment to the Constitution to eventually be passed.
In the 1960s in the heart of the civil rights movement, President Lyndon B. Johnson passed a new law aimed at taking away all restrictions that prevented blacks from voting. At the time, many methods were being used to deny black people their right to participate in an election. For example, some states began requiring that everybody pass a literacy test before being allowed to vote, but the literacy test for black people would include such things as having to recite the Constitution from memory and other requirements obviously intended to make them fail. As you read President Johnson’s words now, think about all the people throughout history who have worked so hard and even given their lives to make sure we all have the right to vote.
Lyndon B. Johnson was born in central Texas on August 27, 1908. Johnson was educated to be a teacher but turned to politics around the age of twenty-five. It was at that time that Johnson met his future wife, Claudia Taylor. Johnson became John F. Kennedy’s vice president during the 1960 campaign, but on November 23, 1963 (just one day after Kennedy’s assassination), Johnson was sworn into office as the thirty-sixth president of the United States.
In the midst of the civil rights crisis of the 1960s, Johnson proved to be a strong leader. In March 1965, he delivered the following message to Congress. Many scholars of the period believe it was Johnson’s greatest speech. The combination of public revulsion over southern white violence and Johnson’s political skills brought Congress to pass the Voting Rights Act on 5 August 1965.
I speak tonight for the dignity of man and the destiny of democracy.
I urge every member of both parties, Americans of all religions and of all colors, from every section of this country, to join me in that cause.
At times history and fate meet at a single time in a single place to shape a turning point in man’s unending search for freedom. So it was at Lexington and Concord.21 So it was a century ago at Appomattox.22 So it was last week in Selma, Alabama.23
There, long-suffering men and women peacefully protested the denial of their rights as Americans. Many were brutally assaulted. One good man, a man of God, was killed.
There is no cause for pride in what has happened in Selma. There is no cause for self-satisfaction in the long denial of equal rights of millions of Americans. But there is cause for hope and for faith in our democracy in what is happening here tonight.
In our time we have come to live with moments of great crisis. Our lives have been marked with debate about great issues; issues of war and peace, issues of prosperity and depression. But rarely in any time does an issue lay bare the secret heart of America itself. Rarely are we met with a challenge, not to our growth or abundance, our welfare or our security, but rather to the values and the purposes and the meaning of our beloved Nation.
The issue of equal rights for American Negroes is such an issue. And should we defeat every enemy, should we double our wealth and conquer the stars, and still be unequal to this issue, then we will have failed as a people and as a nation.
For with a country as with a person, “What is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?”24
There is no Negro problem. There is no Southern problem. There is no Northern problem. There is only an American problem. And we are met here tonight as Americans—not as Democrats or Republicans—we are met here as Americans to solve that problem.
This was the first nation in the history of the world to be founded with a purpose. The great phrases of that purpose still sound in every American heart, North and South: “All men are created equal”25 —”government by consent of the governed”—”give me liberty or give me death.”26 Well, those are not just clever words, or those are not just empty theories. In their name Americans have fought and died for two centuries, and tonight around the world they stand there as guardians of our liberty, risking their lives.
Those words are a promise to every citizen that he shall share in the dignity of man. This dignity cannot be found in a man’s possessions; it cannot be found in his power, or in his position. It really rests on his right to be treated as a man equal in opportunity to all others. It says that he shall share in freedom, he shall choose his leaders, educate his children, and provide for his family according to his ability and his merits as a human being.
To apply any other test—to deny a man his hopes because of his color or race, his religion or the place of his birth—is not only to do injustice, it is to deny America and to dishonor the dead who gave their lives for American freedom.
Our fathers believed that if this noble view of the rights of man was to flourish, it must be rooted in democracy. The most basic right of all was the right to choose your own leaders. The history of this country, in large measure, is the history of the expansion of that right to all of our people.
Many of the issues of civil rights are very complex and most difficult. But about this there can and should be no argument. Every American citizen must have an equal right to vote. There is no reason which can excuse the denial of that right. There is no duty which weighs more heavily on us than the duty we have to ensure that right.
Yet the harsh fact is that in many places in this country men and women are kept from voting simply because they are Negroes.
Every device of which human ingenuity27 is capable has been used to deny this right. The Negro citizen may go to register only to be told that the day is wrong, or the hour is late, or the official in charge is absent. And if he persists, and if he manages to present himself to the registrar,28 he may be disqualified because he did not spell out his middle name or because he abbreviated a word on the application. . . .
For the fact is that the only way to pass these barriers is to show a white skin. . . .
No law that we now have on the books—and I have helped to put three of them there—can ensure the right to vote when local officials are determined to deny it.
In such a case our duty must be clear to all of us. The Constitution says that no person shall be kept from voting because of his race or his color. We have all sworn an oath before God to support and to defend that Constitution. We must now act in obedience to that oath.
Wednesday I will send to Congress a law designed to eliminate illegal barriers to the right to vote. . . .
This bill will strike down restrictions to voting in all elections—Federal, State, and local—which have been used to deny Negroes the right to vote.
This bill will establish a simple, uniform standard which cannot be used, however ingenious the effort, to flout29 our Constitution.
It will provide for citizens to be registered by officials of the United States Government if the State officials refuse to register them.
It will eliminate tedious, unnecessary lawsuits which delay the right to vote. Finally, this legislation will ensure that properly registered individuals are not prohibited from voting. . . .
To those who seek to . . . maintain purely local control over elections, the answer is simple:
Open your polling places to all your people.
Allow men and women to register and vote whatever the color of their skin.
Extend the rights of citizenship to every citizen of this land.
There is no constitutional issue here. The command of the Constitution is plain.
There is no moral issue. It is wrong—deadly wrong—to deny any of your fellow Americans the right to vote in this country.
There is no issue of States’ rights or national rights. There is only the struggle for human rights . . . .
This time, on this issue, there must be no delay, no hesitation and no compromise with our purpose.
We cannot, we must not, refuse to protect the right of every American to vote in every election that he may desire to participate in. . . .
But even if we pass this bill, the battle will not be over. What happened in Selma is part of a far larger movement which reaches into every section and State of America. It is the effort of American Negroes to secure for themselves the full blessings of American life.
Their cause must be our cause too. Because it is not just Negroes, but really it is all of us, who must overcome the crippling legacy of bigotry30 and injustice.
And we shall overcome.31 As a man whose roots go deeply into Southern soil I know how agonizing racial feelings are. I know how difficult it is to reshape the attitudes and the structure of our society.
But a century has passed, more than a hundred years, since the Negro was freed. And he is not fully free tonight. . . .
The time of justice has now come. I tell you that I believe sincerely that no force can hold it back. It is right in the eyes of man and God that it should come. And when it does, I think that day will brighten the lives of every American.
For Negroes are not the only victims. How many white children have gone uneducated, how many white families have lived in stark poverty, how many white lives have been scarred by fear, because we have wasted our energy and our substance to maintain the barriers of hatred and terror?
So I say to all of you here, and to all in the Nation tonight, that those who appeal to you to hold on to the past do so at the cost of denying you your future.
This great, rich, restless country can offer opportunity and education and hope to all: black and white, North and South, sharecropper32 and city dweller. These are the enemies: poverty, ignorance, disease. They are the enemies and not our fellow man, not our neighbor. And these enemies too, poverty, disease and ignorance, we shall overcome.
I hope that, after reading about those who worked so hard to extend the right to vote to every citizen of this nation, you will not forget that voting is not only a privilege but also a tremendous responsibility. That right is part of what makes America great, and that responsibility is part of what will keep America great forever.
1. Mott, Jon. “CIT 70: A Citizen’s Guide to American Politics.” BYU Independent Study.
2. deceitful
3. body of people allowed to vote
4. advocating total abstinence from alcohol
5. the action or the legal process of being charged with a fault or offense
6. asserted without proof or before proving
7. insulting; a subject of laughter
8. the depriving of a privilege or legal right
9. an extinction of a civil right
10. formulated after the fact
11. taken or obtained from a specified source
12. hateful or repugnant
13. government by a small privileged class
14. government by the few
15. disagreement; contentious quarrelling
16. lack of agreement or harmony
17. English dictionary
18. family dictionary
19. law dictionary
20. having no legal or binding force; invalid
21. where “the shot heard round the world” was fired; the first battle of the Revolutionary War
22. where the South surrendered at the end of the Civil War
23. city where state troopers under the direction of Governor George Wallace violently attacked a peaceful gathering of black protesters and outraged the nation
24. Mark 8:36
25. Declaration of Independence
26. from Patrick Henry’s famous speech, “Give me Liberty or Give me Death”
27. skill or cleverness in devising or combining
28. an official recorder or keeper of records
29. to treat with contemptuous disregard
30. the act of being intolerably devoted to opinions and prejudice
31.phrase from a song sung commonly by people during the civil rights movement
32. a tenant farmer who works the land for an agreed share of the value of the crops