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Abolishment of Property Restrictions
In 1800, 3 states ( Kentucky, New Hampshire, and Vermont) has universal white manhood suffrage. Just as industrial wage labor began to create dependent laborers on a large new scale, the older republican commitment to propertied voters fell out of favor. By 1840 more than 90 percent of adult white men possessed the right to vote. In 1856, North Carolina was the last state to abolish the requirement.
Significance: Increased the implementation of Democracy by allowing more people to have a say. -
15th Amendment Ratified
The Fifteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution is ratified, declaring that citizens cannot be denied the right to vote based on “race, color, or previous condition of servitude.”
Significance: This allowed ALL [men] the right to vote, regardless of ecomonic or social status. Although many states tried to prevent blacks from voting by using poll taxes or literacy tests through loopholes. -
19th Amendment Ratified
The Nineteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution is ratified, guaranteeing suffrage for women.
Significance: This gave ALL women, regardless of social or economic status, the legal right to vote. They were able to break away from their husbands and began to be more independent. -
23rd Amendment Passed
This gave citizens of Washington, D.C. the right to vote for U.S. president.
Significance: Since D.C. is a district and not a state, it gave voting rights to those not technically living in any one US state. -
24th Amendment
This amendment banned poll taxes that disabled certain people (of the lower class, typically Black) from voting.
Significance: This allowed citizens who were poor and many blacks, Asians, Native Americans, etc. to have a fair shot at voting without being discriminated against economically. -
Voting Rights Act of 1965
The Voting Rights Act of 1965 prohibits the states and their political subdivisions from imposing voting qualifications or prerequisites to voting, or standards, practices, or procedures that deny or curtail the right of a U.S. citizen to vote because of race, color, or membership in a language minority group.
Significance: It ended the use of literacy tests and other prerequisites legally.. therefore blacks (and other minorities) were now free to vote without restrictions. -
26th Amendment
This granted voting rights for Federal and State elections to 18 year olds.
Significance: This set the bar for the legal age of representation, which happened to be the age when you could join the military.
