Lessons from the Hard-Fought Passage of the 19th Amendment
Vigorous embrace of reforms today will rescue American democracy when crisis strikes
Last week I watched a historical film, “Iron Jawed Angels,” that warrants attention by anyone interested in understanding how reform in America works. It happens through perseverance, self-sacrifice, preparation, and finally—and not least—crisis galvanizing change.
In other words, we are working overtime today, brainstorming and broadcasting solutions to our democracy’s ills, not in the naïve hope that the Republican Party will reform the presidential nominating system in 2024 or that the nation will soon adopt a constitutional amendment abolishing the Electoral College.
Rather, we are preparing. We are laying the groundwork. We are pushing the best ideas possible onto the table now, infusing one another with a “spirit of reform,” so that when circumstances ripen, and unknown crises hit, we are ready.
The secret sauce of reform is preparation. As one British political leader said after World War II with regard to the creation of institutions like the United Nations and World Bank:
If you look at the origins of that, you will find that most of the ideas were actually thought out during the war . . . It is extremely important that when the moment comes in which it is possible to take a new leap forward in . . . institution building, the ideas are there.
This need for preparation is why I put ink to screen here on American Commonwealth. It’s why I write Op-Eds and why I collected the best essays I could find into “The Curse of Demagogues: Lessons Learned from the Presidency of Donald J. Trump.”
It is also why I am teaching a class at Vanderbilt about how democracy thrives. Nick and I are learning, educating, and imbuing students—and ourselves—with a spirit of reform and the audacity to think big.
Levitsky and Ziblatt
The need for preparation is also why Harvard Professors Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt published their latest book “Tyranny of the Minority: How to Reverse an Authoritarian Turn and Forge a Democracy for All.”
In this work, the two authors exert themselves to persuade readers that, although many of the reforms they propose may seem “pie in the sky” today, “reform never happens when it's never considered.”
Levitsky and Ziblatt charge all Americans with the duty of engaging in reform conversation and ultimately with getting aboard the forward-moving train of energy, action, and transformation:
Even if many of our proposals are unlikely to be adopted in the near term, it is essential that ideas for constitutional reform become part of a larger national political debate. The most powerful weapon against change is silence. When an idea is viewed in mainstream circles as impossible, when politicians never mention it, when newspaper editors ignore it, when teachers don't bring it up in class, when scholars stop talking about it for fear of being seen as naïve or out of touch—in short, when an ambitious idea is 'unthinkable'—the battle is lost. Non-reform becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.
The reforms they propose are 1) making it simpler to vote 2) ending gerrymandering 3) replacing the Electoral College with a direct popular vote 4) eliminating the Senate filibuster 5) making Senate representation more proportional 6) ending lifetime tenure on the Supreme Court, and 7) making it easier to reform the Constitution, among others.
Levitsky and Ziblatt counsel us that a laser focus on winning elections within the current structure of our democracy, while essential, will not suffice in the larger project of rescuing our democracy from decline.
Reform is the sine qua non of a future system that is safe, secure, equal, and prosperous:
Are democratic reforms 'pie in the sky'? The barriers to change today are indeed high—from seemingly unmovable Republican opposition to the unparalleled difficulty of amending the US Constitution. They may appear so insurmountable that it's tempting to set aside a list like ours, in pursuit of more immediate goals, like winning the next election or crafting achievable legislation. As political realists, we sympathize with this perspective. Election victories and incremental political improvements are crucial, both to bettering peoples' lives and protecting democracy. But they are not enough.
Discourse and action build upon themselves. This is how successful political and constitutional reform in the United States always works:
Critical to the success of any reform movement is the ability of advocates, organizers, public thinkers, and opinion makers to reshape the terms of political debate and gradually alter what others viewed as desirable or possible. The most significant instances of democratic reform in American history, from Reconstruction to women's suffrage to civil rights, were preceded by years of relentless, legal, political, and public advocacy work.
All this hard work lays the groundwork for breakthroughs in later years. It is a case of passionately pursuing the right thing in the present, from a place of heart and conviction, while having faith that our labors today will bear fruit in the lives of others tomorrow.
The 19th Amendment
What the history of the 19th amendment teaches us is that passion, preparation, and action feed upon one another, enabling a crisis like World War I to catalyze final democratic fulfillment.
Katja von Garnier, director of “Iron Jawed Angels,” vividly captures this lesson in a critically-acclaimed film that recounts the activism and sacrifice of suffragist leaders Alice Paul, Lucy Burns, Inez Milholland, and Carrie Chapman Catt.
Unquestionably, it was the centuries-long efforts by women that carried the 19th Amendment over the finish line. Protest and civil disobedience, beginning at least as early as 1776, culminated in the passage of the landmark measure in August of 1920, instantly giving 22 million women the right to vote.
“The suffragists,” wrote Eleanor Clift, author of Founding Sisters and the Nineteenth Amendment, “engineered the greatest expansion of democracy on a single day the world had ever seen.”
Yet, the leaders of the movement were tactical and strategic, notably pressing their advantage in 1917, the year the United States entered World War I, by picketing outside Woodrow Wilson’s White House for two and a half years. They braved the elements, insults, and spit, brandishing signs like "Mr. President, How Long Must Women Wait For Liberty?" and "What Will You Do For Woman Suffrage?"
Time and again, the suffragists spotlighted the hypocrisy of America’s claim that it had entered World War I to make the world “safe for democracy” while decade after decade denying women democracy (the right to vote) at home.
In a progressive era, the war and the global advance of women’s rights outside the United States laid bare the unequal nature of American society. Women attained the right to vote in Canada in 1917, in Britain, Germany, and Poland in 1918, and in Austria and the Netherlands in 1919.
In the midst of the bloodshed and disruption of World War I, the most radical of the American suffragists refused to retreat. Rather they pushed harder, promising to die for the cause.
And many nearly did: From 1917 to 1919, police arrested over 200 women, ages 19 to 73, for the trumped-up charge of “obstructing traffic.” In jail, Paul and others maintained their protest. After a hunger strike, they were brutally force-fed, news that captured the attention of the nation and the world.
All this—crisis combined with preparation, blood, sweat, and toil—is what it took for women to gain the right to vote in the United States.
On January 9, 1918, President Wilson formally declared his support for national women’s suffrage.
In May and June of 1919 the House and Senate approved a joint resolution in favor of the 19th amendment by the requisite two-thirds majority.
And on August 18, 1920, by a narrow margin, Tennessee became the 36th state to ratify the amendment, achieving the three-quarters majority required.
The Nashville Public Library is home to a permanent exhibition called “Votes for Women.” Created to mark the 100th anniversary of the ratification of the 19th Amendment, the exhibition is a tour de force.
Reform Today
What will be the crisis—or series of crises—that finally catalyzes reform of our presidential nominating system? The abolition of the Electoral College? The establishment of equal voting rights and the restoration of women’s reproductive rights?
We can hardly imagine. Yet we can prepare. We can embrace the spirit of reform. We can arm ourselves with vigorous ideas and a covenant among ourselves to achieve a multiracial, gender-equal democracy, no matter the costs, one led not by demagogues and authoritarians but by engaged citizens and ethical leaders who put the Constitution, oath of office, and country above hate, ego, greed and narrow party interests.
In this striving, we can follow the commandment of Susan B. Anthony, delivered during a speech in Washington, D.C., in 1906, when she was 86 years old, a month before she died.
“Failure is impossible,” the suffragist leader said. Fourteen years later, the 19th amendment she had labored most of her entire life to achieve became the supreme law of the land.
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Email me at eli.merritt@vanderbilt.edu