Today in Supreme Court History: August 18, 1920

8/18/1920: The Nineteenth Amendment is ratified.

Comments

[AmosArch]

If they could see what would happen, they'd probably want their vote back.

[Krychek_2]

My great-grandfather, who was a member of the Kansas legislature at the time, vigorously opposed giving women the vote, not because he had anything per se against women voting, but because he was a conservative who recognized that women would be more likely to vote liberal.

And I see that as yet one more instance of conservatives doing everything they can to rig the system to dilute the liberal vote. See: Electoral college, two senators per state, filibuster, gerrymandering, opposition to early voting and mail in voting, etc., etc., etc. Why come up with policies that people actually like when they can just keep liberal votes from counting?

[The Margrave of Azilia]

IIRC several Western states were early adopters of woman's suffrage so that married women could balance out the irresponsible (and potentially radical) votes of single men.

[Magister]

Or because they wanted to make the frontier which had a shortage of women more attractive to women.

[The Margrave of Azilia]

And don't forget Prohibition.

I don't know which of today's political factions wants to take the credit for Prohibition. But back in the day it was a key argument for (and against) woman suffrage that the female vote would lead to Prohibition.

We talk of Susan B. Anthony, but let's consider Frances Willard and her Women's Christian Temperance Union. They wanted woman suffrage not only in itself, but because it would lead to Prohibition. Think of it - women owe the vote in part to a bunch of female "theocrats."

[Magister]

Except Prohibition preceded women voting (except for a few western states); plenty of men pushed for prohibition, even though domestic violence makes drunkenness more of a women's issue. Willard died in 1898, and the WCTU moved away from advocating suffrage.

https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2019/01/13/prohibition-women-blame-history-223972/

[The Margrave of Azilia]

The article you linked doesn’t mention Willard, it mentions Carrie Nation, and seems to insinuate that she was representative of the WCTU. But the real WCTU person was Willard, who worked through the political process, and if she ever had a literal hatchet (as opposed to a political one) I’m not aware of it.

“plenty of men pushed for prohibition”

I’m not trying to erase male prohibitionists from history, as the author claims modern people do (he doesn’t provide much evidence for this except showing that Carrie Nation is more of a Google celebrity than Wayne Wheeler).

The article does mention Neal Dow, the “father of Prohibition,” who died in 1897, around the same time as Willard. If his contribution can be noted, despite his pre-national-prohibition death, so can hers.

“Prohibition preceded women voting (except for a few western states)”

It preceded *equal suffrage* under the 19th Amendment. There were enough women voters in enough states on the eve of that amendment to make male politicians interested in their vote, not to mention thinking about what would happen if they were on the losing side of a successful woman-suffrage vote.

As for why the 19th amendment came after the 18th – politically speaking, defeating the “wets” (with the 18th Amendment) made the wets temporarily marginalized in politics so that their bete noir, women’s suffrage, could then pass without them having the will to rally against it.

[Magister]

The point is that there were plenty of men who pushed for Prohibition, and who do not appear to have approached it from the women's suffrage movement; men like Neal Dow would undoubtedly have a lot more influence in the 19th century than women like Frances Willard. The Prohibition Party and the Anti-Saloon League both appear to have had more influence than the WCTU. There were also organizations who supported women's suffrage without supporting prohibition, and a lot of prohibition support was religiously motivated and therefore unlikely to support other feminist causes, which might actually empower women to protect themselves.

[The Margrave of Azilia]

The Women's Christian Temperance Union sounds religiously motivated to me.

[Magister]

Yes. That does not invalidate anything I wrote.

[Dr. Ed 2]

Remember that some states let women vote before the 18th Amendment, and we had a lot of servicemen still overseas.

And were clergy exempt from the draft.

Hence ratification.

[Magister]

Since there was no popular referendum on the amendment, the composition of the voting public would not be relevant. The war may have affected the selection of legislators (state and federal), but legislatures rarely see extensive turnover. But Dr. Ed 2 will not be denied another dark conspiracy.

[jdgalt1]

It doesn't take any dark conspiracy to notice that (1) the Temperance movement and Suffragettes heavily overlapped, and (2) the century since enactment of women's suffrage has been a steady march toward more and worse nanny-statism in the US, at the expense of freedom.

I don't think it's going too far to conclude that women's suffrage was a mistake. As were most but not all of the changes in our system over that period, especially the New Deal.

[Dr. Ed 2]

No, Magister, it was more because women on the frontier were de-facto men, doing men's work and defending their families with firearms. The rationale was why shouldn't they then vote.

By the same rationale, women today should NOT be able to vote -- they are living off the spoils of the government and hence it is a conflict of interest for them to be voting. Look at the abortion issue -- and I hope they realize that a backlash is coming. For example, the next time the DOD issues a "stop loss" order, I can see *mandatory* abortions for pregnant servicewomen.

[Noscitur a sociis]

Remember folks: he doesn’t make things up!

[bernard11]

Well, since he lives in his own private universe it's hard to tell. Maybe gravity works differently there.

[Dr. Ed 2]

There is precedent -- Anthrax vaccine shots in 1990, Covid shots 30 years later. If a soldier's body is "government property", then...

[Magister]

The military requiring vaccination would seem to have substantial historical precedent, with George Washington mandating inoculation in 1777. Abortions, not so much.

Dr. Ed 2 is not much interested in defending earlier statements in that post, though.

[Magister]

Serial fabulist Dr. Ed 2 is a vile human being who advocates for mass murder. The rationales for women voting in western territories were varied; to attract more women, but also specifically to attract more white women. One lawmaker in Wyoming attempted a poison pill amendment of explicitly extending suffrage to non-white women in an attempt to block a suffrage bill. Doing men's work was low on the list, if present at all.

Women's participation in the workforce has steadily increased since World War II. But Dr. Ed 2 has long harbored fantasies that men vote to represent their female family members, and made up stuff about history to support that. It would be odd for the conservatives who want women to stay home and rear children to punish those who do by denying women the vote, but JD Vance is no doubt down with it, at least for the childless cat ladies.

[Syd Henderson]

I gather the poison-pill amendment backfired? It would have been moot anyways since once women are given the vote, that includes nonwhite women under the 15th amendment.

[David Nieporent]

Well, theoretically. The 15th amendment mostly didn't even result in nonwhite (black) men voting, let alone nonwhite women.

[Syd Henderson]

Certainly, but in this case the theoretical makes it moot.

[Aoidized]

Perhaps because "policies people like" will ultimately destroy societies, if implemented? There's a reason the founders set the system up the way they did.

[Krychek_2]

Then why bother to have the charade of elections at all? Why not simply pass a law that says that conservatives will hold power in perpetuity? It would be far more honest and save lots of money.

You’re entitled to your opinion that policies people like will destroy societies, but, ultimately, it is your opinion, and entitled to no more weight than the contrary opinions of others. What you're really arguing is that you have a right to not have policies enacted that you disagree with, and there is no such right.

[Malika]

“Why not simply pass a law that says that conservatives will hold power in perpetuity?”

They’re working on that. Google Vance and Yarvin or Thiel and democracy.

[Aoidized]

You are assuming there is no variation in conservative male thought. There is. The Civil War is a great example of how that manifests itself.

The problem, when boiled down to its most simple form, is that men realize that life is unfair. Women think that it's the role of government to make life as fair as possible.

As far as left-wing ideas destroying society, the annals of history provide plenty of examples. The Soviet Union, Venezuela, Zimbabwe, and many others.

A society where people can vote themselves gifts from the treasury simply can't last. This is not up for debate.

Do you think we can run $2 trillion deficits in perpetuity? At what point do we lose the reserve currency status if we print to maintain this debt? At what point do long-term bond yields blow out if we don't?

Right after women got the vote, we ended up with Prohibition, and shortly after, the "New Deal."

This is not a coincidence.

I recognize that my ideals will never be implemented democratically, as people will never vote to eliminate their own vote, no matter how undeserving they are of it. But when the economic system collapses, our republic will be replaced with something else. At that point, anything is fair game.

[Krychek_2]

The problem with the Soviet Union, Venezuela and Zimbabwe was the lack of democratic elections. Mugabe and Maduro openly stole elections and the USSR only allowed one party to run. So it’s a bit rich for you to be citing them as examples of what’s wrong with democracy.

Yes life is unfair and nobody is fool enough to think government can make it fair. But it does not follow that government should not mitigate the worst effects of it.

And yes, deficits are a huge problem. They are also largely the fault of GOP tax cuts for the wealthy and the ruinous GOP war in Afghanistan, both of which would have been avoided had we not had an electoral college.,

[Dan Schiavetta]

+1

[Aoidized]

Nonsense. Those places had hustlers and dictators take power because of the negative consequences that democracy wrought, leading people to crave alternatives.

And no, the deficits are not the fault of tax cuts, but of bloated social spending, including the entitlement programs.

[Magister]

The Soviet Union was preceded by the Russian Empire under Czar Nicholas, and barely had a whole year and no democracy before the Bolsheviks took over. (I also doubt the problems in Zimbabwe or Venezuela were caused by earlier democracy.)

[Magister]

Minority rule seems more to destroy societies than majority rule.

[Krychek_2]

Yup. One of the reasons the Articles of Confederation failed was Rhode Island having a veto over the necessary taxation to pay off the Revolutionary War debt.

[Sarcastr0]

This is the kind of wild sexism that the GOP is having increasing trouble keeping under control.

Vance ain't helping.

[Frank Drackman]

C'mon,(Man!) you're slipping, no crack about his having Sex with a couch? being a "Combat" Correspondent? (Military Journalist actually, Gee, he had some sense. Infantry or Journalism? which would you pick?)that he was "JD Bowman" (and before that "JD Hamel" sorry we don't all come from Intact Happy Shiny Fambilies)
"45" did miss the chance to nominate a VP with some Co-Jones, Tulsi Gabbard, who totally Be-otch Slapped Cums-a-lot in the 2019 Debates, and unlike Sergeant Major-Dick Pepper-Waltz did carry a Weapon in a Wah
Speaking of Sexism, how about that %60 of aborted Feti are Female, where only 52% of births are, Coincidence? or are female Feti just not valued as much as Males?

Frank

[Magister]

how about that %60 of aborted Feti are Female, where only 52% of births are

The latter seems unlikely to be true, given that the natural sex ratio appears to be less than 50% female, and sex selective abortion would typically decrease the percentage of females. The former is unlikely at least for the US, where the majority of abortions are medication abortions earlier than 10 weeks of gestation when fetal sex is usually not known. (But sex selection is available with IVF, which pro-lifers don't oppose as widely, suggesting that sex selection is not their real concern.)

[Frank Drackman]

Well spoken, so your Medical Degree, Count Chockula or Frank N Berry?

[bernard11]

Not a question of medical degrees but of common sense and basic arithmetic.

[Dr. Ed 2]

You assume that all the estrogen in the water isn't changing the birth ratio.

[Magister]

Not a significant factor for humans, as there is more exposure to estrogen from other sources. In any event, that assumption is more likely to be from Frank Drackman.

[Malika]

Guy who can't Work His shift Key asks for Credentials!

[jdgalt1]

If you really want to go there, what about Walz and the horse?

[Dr. Ed 2]

Except the GOP is not going far enough with it.

Men have been shit on in this country for the past 50 years and everyone knows it. They know it, their mothers know it, and their wives know it.

So if the GOP were simply to write off the single women -- calling them dumb cunts and welfare leaches (the latter worked well for Reagan), it could win with a solid block of male voters and women who love men.

I don't like to see a country divided this way, but if this is what the feminists want, I say give it to them. End ALL Title IX Kangaroo Korts in higher education, etc.

[Malika]

Angry incel is angry!

[Magister]

Would anything be better for my preferred candidates than for Republicans to follow the campaign advice of MRAs like Dr. Ed 2?

Of course, Reagan's welfare queen rhetoric was an appeal to racism rather than misogyny.

[Aoidized]

The better thing to do is to weaponize the legal system against them. Repeal laws making it illegal for men to rape their wives. Eliminate alimony and child support if the woman initiates divorce.

Amend the self-defense laws so that a woman mouthing off to a man justifies assault.

There are lots of things we could do to get non-traditional women in line. We just don't.

[Magister]

To echo Malika:
"Please Trump supporters, lean into this kind of talk as much as you can up to the election!"

[Malika]

"If they could see what would happen, they’d probably want their vote back."

Please Trump supporters, lean into this kind of talk as much as you can up to the election!

[JoeFromtheBronx]

The “Thin And Thick Conceptions of The Nineteenth Amendment Right to Vote and Congress’s Power to Enforce It” by Rick Hasen and Leah Litman argues for a broad meaning of the 19A.

https://repository.law.umich.edu/articles/2174/

Equal citizenship includes reproductive liberty. As noted by Abele v. Markle (Markle I): “From being wholly excluded from political matters, they have secured full access to the political arena.” [citing the 19A]

This was put in context: “The changed role of women in society and the changed attitudes toward them reflect the societal judgment that women can competently order their own lives and that they are the appropriate decisionmakers about matters affecting their fundamental concerns.”

Equality is a united whole. Different parts fit together. Adkins v. Children’s Hospital partially appealed to the 19A to argue a minimum wage law specific to women was unconstitutional.

Many disagreed with that application. The specifics can be debated. But, the 19A still recognizes a principle that should be honored broadly.

[The Margrave of Azilia]

I don't know, the more subjects are removed from the voters by the courts, the fewer voting rights women actually have.

Of course, some things should not be up for a vote, but the 19th Amendment isn't written to add to these things, but to provide equal suffrage in voting on those things which are legitimately up for a vote.

[JoeFromtheBronx]

The right to vote is part of a united whole of republican government.

The First Amendment, for instance, protects essential rights to uphold a republican democracy. Other rights are as well.

That is my concern — the united whole, now with more people voting, each with specific needs and concerns. Before the 19A, women were not deemed full citizens in a basic way -- able to vote. Once they can vote, it's harder to deny them other rights.

The 19A guards against sex discrimination in voting. The Hasen/Litman article argues that a range of things are necessary to protect that. For instance, if voting rules make it harder for working mothers to vote, it is a 19A problem.

The whole thing does "add" things in a key way.

[The Margrave of Azilia]

Well, the 1A was around before the 19A and we don’t need to wait for a 19A before enforcing 1A principles. So with other basic rights.

I don’t think the 19A, by guaranteeing equal suffrage, reduced the scope of legitimate self-government more than the constitution already did before the 19A was passed.

If it’s hard for working mothers to vote, imagine working *men.* Which is why we sometimes have calls for making election day a civic holiday. Or nowadays, turning election day into several election weeks, which I suppose would serve the same end though it might have side effects.

[Malika]

"If it’s hard for working mothers to vote, imagine working *men.*"

I think the idea is that since working mothers are often expected to do a lion's share of the parenting in addition to working they have less time.

[Krayt]

I'm fine with increasing freedom aka rights for The People, even ideas that would not have been accepted as rights back in the day.

But not fine with deciding government should have new powers over business sans amendment. This is growing government control over people and their efforts, the opposite of freedom, at the whim of those desiring power, rather than a conscious and well-pondered order from The People.

[Krychek_2]

The practical problem is that corporate power can be just as oppressive as government power. If your ability to feed your family depends on the tender mercies and humanitarian impulses of your employer, you'll soon find out that there are far worse things in life than government regulation.

[Sarcastr0]

I think you need evidence showing the 15th and 19th Amendments were passed for political utility reasons.
I know you think politicians are some evil breed apart from other humans, but for most people that won't cut it.

Inviting the voting public to dilute the power of their vote is a recipe for stasis.

[The Margrave of Azilia]

There was a core of idealists who believed in equal suffrage, and without them in each case the 15th and 19th wouldn’t have gotten off the ground.

But to push these amendments through to passage – that’s where impure, cynical politics creeps in. For the 15A, politicians not previously known for their racial egalitarianism discovered that black people were a potential source of votes for them or their party. For the 19A, politicians realized that if the other party backed women suffrage and their party didn’t, they’d be at a disadvantage vis-a-vis women voters, even if the 19A wasn’t ratified (because women were voting in some states before the 19A).

[Sarcastr0]

So assuming you have it right (sounds right), Krayt's take is, as usual, more based on ideology than history.

[JoeFromtheBronx]

There is some historical evidence that the penalty in 14A, sec. 2 as well as the 15th Amendment was partially passed to help the governing Republican government win elections.

The 15A also was passed since it is essential for equality for people to have the right to vote. Both principle and pragmatic reasons were present. You probably can also show the "political utility" involved in the 19A to some extent.

Anyway, why this led to a launch of concern about regulation of business is unclear. The voting rights amendments expand the power of the people, who have used legitimate constitutional power to regulate business and other matters.

[Aoidized]

Unrelated to this, but a new national poll shows that 50% of Americans would be happy or satisfied if Harris is elected, while 48% would be "angry or dissatisfied."

This kind of polarization can't last.

[Krychek_2]

It's a matter of degree. Democrats were "dissatisfied" that Trump won the 2016 election but they didn't send a mob to the Capitol to try to prevent the votes from being certified.

[Dan Schiavetta]

+1
Jan. 6, 2021, and Trump’s obvious approval of it, should be mentioned anytime someone tries to equate attitudes of Democrats with attitudes of Republicans.

[Michael P]

Only for people too dumb or dishonest the riots of the summer of 2020, and the open approval of Democrat leaders including Tim Walz, who let them continue for days, and Kamala Harris, who endorsed them:

Everyone beware. They're not gonna stop before election day in November, and they're not gonna stop after election day ... They’re not gonna let up, and they should not.

[Malika]

"Only for people too dumb or dishonest the riots of the summer of 2020, and the open approval of Democrat leaders including Tim Walz"

Trump praised Walz's George Floyd riot response in 2020, audio shows: 'Very happy'

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/trump-praised-walz-george-floyd-riot-response-2020-audio-shows-very-happy

You have to feel sorry for Trump supporters like Michael P, like everyone else that has served Trump in his life he undercuts them regularly. And yet they persist....

[Dr. Ed 2]

Really?

They went, just didn't get there because of competent security.

[Magister]

So a Democratic administration (Obama) oversaw competent security, and a Republican administration (Trump) did not? Hardly a recommendation of Trump for those who delude themselves that it wasn't Trump's insurrection.

[Michael P]

No, they just sent a mob to the capital to try to prevent Trump’s inauguration, and then had essentially all the charges against those rioters dismissed.

Unlike the Jan 6th protest four years later, the attempt to “OccupyJ20” in 2017 actually had a plausible path to delay the transfer of power.

[Malika]

They were there to prevent the transfer of the Presidency to Trump?

It's interesting that Clinton was against that. Wonder how Trump acted in the same situation?

[Mr. Bumble]

Test, test:
https://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/inauguration-2017/washington-faces-more-anti-trump-protests-after-day-rage-n709946

[Malika]

And how do you find your citation relevant here Bumble?

[Krychek_2]

Oh it’s just Bumble’s usual what abouting. Doesn’t have to be relevant so long as it involves Democrats.

[Malika]

It's not even whataboutism (which I agree he's all about), it's not relevant. Let him explain how it is.

[JoeFromtheBronx]

Well, the name is honest, at least. Fair warning to the classical minded.

[Dan Schiavetta]

I muted him. You should too. Very occasionally he makes a thoughtful comment but the noise to signal ratio was about 100:1.

[Estragon]

I don’t mute bumble because he occasionally tries to add something substantive, and that is worth the comedic value.

[Aoidized]

No. They just had their deep state "civil servants" and left wing judges do the dirty work for them.

[Frank Drackman]

Good luck getting the Army to burn Atlanta again

[Magister]

Do you have a link to this poll? I'm curious what the numbers are if Trump were elected. I expect that the 50% would vote for Harris, plus some portion of the dissatisfied given the reporting on the "double haters" when it was still Biden versus Trump, so for me this is good news.

And the polarization will not last; no other Republican candidate has been able to hold enough of the Trump voters, or the Republican establishment would have ditched Trump.

[Malika]

Even if there was a link and it said something different than he claimed he could just follow his leader and say it was AI generated.

[Magister]

Oh, I forgot we're in the "unskewing polls" phase of the GOP campaign.

[Malika]

It's not even that. The dotard the GOP has nominated literally claimed that a crowd that appeared for a Harris event at an airport was entirely AI generated, that in reality "no one" was there. This was a public event that numerous people and journalists could easily produce evidence to disprove and yet this deranged or psychopathic man whom the GOP has fell behind in cult-like fashion went out of his way to make a public lie about.

[Magister]

It's a sad world where one is more likely to think that something real is an Onion story than that an Onion story is real.

[Dan Schiavetta]

Hortonville Joint School Dist. No. 1 v. Hortonville Education Ass’n, 423 U.S. 1301 (decided August 18, 1975): Rehnquist refuses to stay Wisconsin Supreme Court order holding that teachers fired for going on illegal strike were denied due process; believes that cert would not be granted (in fact it was, and the Court ruled against the teachers, holding that review of terminations by the local school board was adequate due process, 426 U.S. 482, 1976)

[Malika]

"review of terminations by the local school board was adequate due process,"

Compare and contrast to the administrative proceedings for Title IX violations regarding alleged sexual assault by college students and the conservative furor saying it is inadequate process.

[Dan Schiavetta]

“The women got the vote, and not only that, one vote for each woman, which seemed more fair.” Philomena Cunk

[Syd Henderson]

I hadn't come across that quote before. Thank you.

[JoeFromtheBronx]

"If this matter were before me on the petition for certiorari where I would be casting my vote as a Member of the Court, I would conclude that the judgment of the Supreme Court of Wisconsin did rest solely upon the Fourteenth Amendment. But in my capacity as Circuit Justice, where I act "as a surrogate for the entire Court," [citation] doubts as to whether the judgment may not rest also upon a construction of the Wisconsin Constitution, and as to the finality of the judgment, lead me to deny the application."

https://caselaw.findlaw.com/court/us-supreme-court/423/1301.html

[Dan Schiavetta]

Thanks!

[JoeFromtheBronx]

"I long to hear that you have declared an independancy—and by the way in the new Code of Laws which I suppose it will be necessary for you to make I desire you would Remember the Ladies, and be more generous and favourable to them than your ancestors. Do not put such unlimited power into the hands of the Husbands. Remember all Men would be tyrants if they could. If perticuliar care and attention is not paid to the Laidies we are determined to foment a Rebelion, and will not hold ourselves bound by any Laws in which we have no voice, or Representation."

Abigail Adams to John Adams, 3/31/76

[Magister]

Married, children, dogs - OK, the GOP thinks we can listen to her, as long as neither dog was Satan.

[JoeFromtheBronx]

One curious thing — the Nineteenth Amendment doesn’t separate the two sentences with “section” labels like with other amendments.

[CJColucci]

I avoided this thread because I thought I knew how it would go. Then my curiosity got the better of me. Now I'm going to take a shower.