Changing our voting history
Tennessee was the 36th state to ratify the 19th Amendment, which passed it into law
KNOXVILLE — Millions of women’s ability to vote freely in every election rested on the Tennessee legislature in 1920.
By March 1920, 35 states had ratified the 19th Amendment, which extended the right to vote to American women, but one more was required to make it law. And there had been a lull in states embracing the amendment.
Southern states were doing the cause no favors.
Georgia and Alabama had rejected it outright. Then Mississippi, South Carolina and Virginia said no thanks. Florida never acted on it. Louisiana voted it down. And up North, the governors of Connecticut and Vermont refused to call a special session of their legislatures.
And yet, Tennessee had been inching toward women’s suffrage for years.
Tennessee was on the path already
Nashville was the first Southern city to host a suffrage parade in 1914. The excitement there helped persuade the National American Woman Suffrage Association to
“This was the greatest nonviolent revolution in the history of our country because they changed the course of American history without firing a shot.”
Paula Casey, Tennessee Woman Suffrage Heritage Trail co-founder
hold its national convention in Nashville later that year.
Nashville historian David Ewing writes that thousands of delegates descended on Nashville, where they learned organizing techniques and strategies and how to lobby their legislatures.
There they marched peacefully from the Capitol to Centennial Park, a 2-mile hike, Tennessee Woman Suffrage Heritage Trail co-founder Paula Casey said. They published newspapers, wrote letters and traveled to other communities — both near and far — to spread the message.
“They persisted and preserved with a nonviolent revolution,” Casey said. “That is so important to point out. This was the greatest nonviolent revolution in the history of our country because they changed the course of American history without firing a shot.”
Miranda Fraley-rhodes is curating the Tennessee State Museum’s exhibition “Ratified! Tennessee Women and the Right to Vote” this spring. She said the convention was a major event for the state.
“Even if (local leaders) weren’t totally on board with suffrage, they were very positive and gracious, and I think among a lot of leaders in the state, if they weren’t totally pro-suffrage, they felt it was inevitable that women would get the chance to vote,” she said.
It was thought, Fraley-rhodes said, that Tennessee wouldn’t play a role at all. State suffragists weren’t expecting to join the national movement because of a clause in the state constitution that restricted the legislature from voting on federal amendments.
By the time the U.S. Supreme Court invalidated these restrictions, there were few states that hadn’t already cast their votes or decided not to hold one altogether.
“Tennessee suffragists were very interested in the ratification of the 19th Amendment, but it was almost kind of an unexpected thing when Tennessee was really available to vote on the amendment,” Fraley-rhodes said.
Tennessee makes history
Still, by 1920, a victory in Tennessee was possible in large part because the state had passed a partial suffrage bill the year before, which gave Tennessee women the right to vote in national and municipal elections, though they still couldn’t vote for state offices.
On the other hand, defeat would set back the entire movement, writes Elaine Weiss in her 2018 suffrage book, “The Woman’s Hour.”
“A defeat in Tennessee ... would allow the forces against suffrage to gain strength, new legal obstacles to be thrown into the path, men to forget what women had contributed to the Great War effort, women to lose heart.”
Democratic Gov. Albert Roberts scheduled a special session to give the legislature the opportunity for a vote. As the session began, Roberts reminded the lawmakers that the heads of both national parties favored suffrage.
The reminder didn’t help.
The Senate approved the amendment, 25-4. But the House followed on Aug. 18 and voted to table the ultimate suffrage vote two times, and two times the vote resulted in a tie. Seeing the tie, House Speaker Seth Walker assumed a vote on the suffrage bill itself would also tie, and fail.
For his part, Rep. Harry Burn had voted twice to table the measure. But when Walker’s call for an up or down vote came, Burn, under much prodding from everyone from his mother to President Woodrow Wilson, changed his mind and voted “yes,” securing the majority. It ended up passing the House 50-46.
Roberts signed the measure six days later on Aug. 24.
Two days later, U.S. Secretary of State Bainbridge Colby issued a proclamation that declared ratification of the 19th Amendment.
Roughly a month later Connecticut’s legislature convened for a belated special session and became the 37th state to ratify. It didn’t matter.
“Connecticut tries to act like they would’ve done it ... their governor didn’t even want to consider it,” Casey said. “So, Tennessee is really amazing. That it happened in a state with no real history of progressivism. But it was because of the determined women.”