The late John Lewis, great civil rights advocate and U.S. congressman from Georgia said, “the vote is precious. It is almost sacred. It is the most powerful nonviolent tool we have in a democracy.” Voting is indeed precious and a powerful tool protecting our democracy, but ensuring that voting becomes the bedrock of our democratic way of life has not been easy, in fact it has faced many challenges and obstacles as those who feared the power of the vote and the voice of the people have tried to make it difficult to cast a ballot.
The right to vote in the newly independent colonies did not get off to a favorable start as the Founding Fathers restricted participation in electoral politics to wealthy men with property. Franklin, Jefferson and Adams, who were largely responsible for writing the Declaration of Independence, relied upon thinking of British political philosophers like John Locke who accented the importance of civil society and a social contract that unified the people and French thinker Jean Jacques Rousseau who talked about the value of the “general will.” This is where “We The People” comes from. There was little talk among the Founders about the rights of women, Native Americans and slaves, even though Adams’ wife Abigail reminded her husband to “remember the ladies” with Adams responding “…We know better than to repeal our Masculine systems.” As to the voting rights of slaves, it is important to stress that 41 of the 56 signers of the Declaration owned slaves. While Franklin and Jefferson eventually rejected slavery, there was no attempt to extend voting rights to slaves. As to Native Americans, there was no mention of their rights under this new document of independence.
It would take the disastrous Civil War to begin expanding voting rights in the United States. At the cemetery in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, President Abraham Lincoln reemphasized the words of the Declaration of Independence that “all men are created equal.” Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863, but after his assassination the 13th Amendment was ratified (in 1865) ending slavery and involuntary servitude. Later in 1870, the 15th Amendment was passed stating that “citizens of the United States shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or any state the right to vote on account of race, color or previous condition of servitude.” Sadly, however, the struggle to guarantee the right to vote for former slaves continued as Southern states during the Jim Crow era employed various strategies to suppress the vote from mandating deliberately difficult civics tests that ensured failure, to exorbitant fees to vote to outright intimidation. While in northern states, voting by former slaves was accepted and numerous candidates for political office did benefit from newly enfranchised voters.
With the passage of the 15th Amendment, the next hurdle to expanding voting rights was women’s suffrage. The push for women’s suffrage began in Seneca Falls, New York in 1847 where 68 women and 32 men signed a Declaration of Sentiments which was modeled after the Declaration of Independence with 12 resolutions including voting rights for women. The Seneca Falls convention was followed two years later with the first Women’s Rights Convention in Worcester, Massachusetts in which civil rights luminaries such as Frederick Douglas, William Lloyd Garrison, Lucy Stone and Sojourner Truth attended and spoke passionately about voting rights. With the end of the Civil War the voting rights movement was led by Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony who formed the American Equal Rights Association calling for Congress to mandate universal suffrage. At this stage of the movement for female suffrage the leadership faced increasing opposition in Congress and among prominent men. It was not until Susan B. Anthony registered to vote in support of Ulysses S. Grant for President in 1871 that new momentum for suffrage began but slowly. Unfortunately, Anthony was arrested, tried and convicted. Her defense that the 14th Amendment entitled her to vote was rejected and two years later a Supreme Court ruling found that the 14th Amendment did not guarantee a women’s right to vote but was rather a state matter.
As women continued to push for voting right with marches and lobbying of Congress, Jennette Rankin of Montana was elected to Congress in 1916 followed by President Woodrow Wilson’s pledge that the Democratic Party Platform would support suffrage. At the end of World War I, the Woman’s Suffrage Amendment was introduced in Congress (the Amendment was originally written by Susan B. Anthony in 1878). The Amendment passed by both houses of Congress and moved to state ratification. In 1920 the 19th Amendment to the Constitution passed and certified as law stating that “citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex.”
To complete the voting rights struggle, Native Americans gained the right to vote in 1948 as they were finally declared citizens of the United States. Despite being in America before the Declaration of Independence, it would take over 150 years for Native Americans to hold their rightful place in the political system. But while women expanded their political power with the vote, Native Americans did not utilize their new status to overcome generations of injustice and maltreatment at the hands of a ruthless and uncaring national government. It is only now as the nation celebrates 250 years of independence that there are faint signs of growing Native American power particularly at the state level.
In the contemporary era the voting rights struggle shifted once more to civil rights. In 1961 the 23rd Amendment was passed granting the people of the District of Columbia who were largely African-Americans the right to vote in presidential elections with three electoral votes but without Congressional representation. Control of District matters remained under the control of House and Senate committees. In 1964 the 24th Amendment was passed, which did away with the poll tax or other taxes used as a way of suppressing the Black vote primarily in southern states. And in 1971 voting right were extended to Americans 18 years or older recognizing the growth and influence of the younger population.
Although these changes and additions were relatively minor adjustments to voting rights they laid the groundwork for the 1965 Voting Rights Act. Signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson the law enforced the 15th Amendment outlawing discriminatory voting practices and setting the stage for increased black registration and Black candidates for office. Black voter registration increased from nearly one-third to over 50% of Black voters after 1965 and was backed up by federal examiners and federal marshals to ensure compliance. Most historians credit the Voting Rights Act as the most important legislation to expand democratic participation of a segment of the population long ignored and discriminated against.
The passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 does not end the struggle to ensure that Americans are afforded their ability to cast their ballot in national elections. In 2025 and 2026 the Republican controlled House and Senate with intense pressure from President Trump pushed for the passage of the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act commonly called the SAVE Act. The Act is based on the Republican view that an identification/proof of citizenship document is necessary before voting. Although 70% of Americans support this change in the law as common sense, Republicans support was based on the view that the Democrats would engage in voter fraud and illegal migrant voting to swing the 2026 mid-term elections. In past elections there has been little evidence of fraud while illegal voting by migrants has not been determined with any degree of certainty. Moreover, proof of citizenship may be difficult for many Americans as they are unable to find their original birth certificate; they have no passport which will satisfy the law; they cannot afford the cost of verifying their birth certificate and in the case of a sizeable number of women who changed their original name on their certificate when they married, presenting a proof of citizenship could deny their ability to vote. The SAVE Act like much of the legislation in Congress is currently caught in partisan wrangling and is stalled and could possibly languish without action before the November midterm elections.
In 1853 in a sermon to his congregation abolitionist minister Theodore Parker said what Martin Luther King Jr. echoed years later: “The arc of the moral universe is long but bends toward justice.” One can only hope that in this year in which we celebrate our nation’s independence and the inspiring words of our founding fathers that efforts to suppress the vote of Americans will cease and that we will implement measures to make the casting of ballots less difficult, more transparent and meaningful. If voting is indeed precious and sacred, we should treat it as such. Voting can save our democracy. We need to make every effort to strengthen voting, not limit or suppress it.