Sabotaging elections? Learn the lessons of the 19th Amendment

FPI / August 28, 2019

Analysis by Sarah Cowgill, LibertyNation.com

Recently, the 99th anniversary of the 19th Amendment to the US Constitution was celebrated by those Democrats and progressives across the country who are trying to stifle the vote. California attempts to deny President Donald Trump’s name on the 2020 ballot. Democratic-controlled states desperately seek ways to invalidate the Electoral College. These are tactics of oppression in the battle for equality, opportunity, and the constitutional right of all American citizens to select the president of the United States.

Isn’t it ironic? In a frantic effort to win by any means, a war is being waged by the radical left to suppress the rights of conservatives and reset the clock on progress to the early 19th century.

It’s a foolish and dangerous game.

The 19th Amendment gave American women the right to vote. It took damn near 100 years. Groups loosely formed in the 1820s, such as temperance leagues and abolitionist movements, were organized and run mostly by women. And that’s where the first seeds of discontent were sown.

An organized effort in 1848, the Women’s Rights Seneca Falls convention, staged by Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Antony, and Lucretia Mott propelled the idea of women voting into the national spotlight. The struggle, then in earnest, would last another 60 years and did conclude with the ratification of the 19th Amendment.

Suffragette Carrie Chapman Catt, who campaigned loudly while leading an army of voteless women in 1919 to pressure Congress, became the thorn in the side of President Woodrow Wilson. And Catt didn’t rest on her spiky laurels after marching in front of the White House and pressuring Congress. She took the cause further and founded the League of Women Voters and International Alliance of Women.

But this nation can also give thanks to Republicans for ensuring women the right to vote.

 In May 1919, Rep. James R. Mann (R-IL), chairman of the Suffrage Committee, proposed a House resolution to approve the Susan Anthony Amendment to prevent the federal government from denying the right to vote based on gender. Interestingly enough, at that time, there were only two sexes. (All bets are off for the next oppressed class — but I digress.) The measure passed the House 304 to 89 — a whopping 42 votes above the required two-thirds majority. Did I mention it was a Republican majority that year?

Two weeks later, on June 4, 1919, the Democrat-controlled Senate also passed the 19th Amendment  — 56-25 — with only two votes over the two-thirds required majority. The amendment was then sent to the states for ratification. The decision finally hinged on the vote of one wet-behind-the-ears Republican, Rep. Harry T. Burn, from Tennessee. Or rather his momma, who wrote to her son, “Don’t forget to be a good boy and help Mrs. Catt put the ‘rat’ in ratification.”

And Harry listened to Mama Burn.

The United States has grown in the desire for inclusiveness. Although painful for some, the majority has been the lucky recipient of being born American citizens or granted US citizenship. We solve our government problems with the ballot box — not by attacking the Constitution. However, that is precisely what the Democrats have done since being kicked to the curb outside 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue in 2016.

 It’s a helluva way to celebrate the 99th anniversary of the 19th Amendment: trying to find ways to eliminate the victory that ensured voting for women. Women went to jail in the early 1900s for the heinous crime of asking for the right to vote. So, ladies and sissified men on the left, knock off the silly sore loser mentality and send President Trump packing the American way — by the constitutional process and the ballot box. The rest of us will raise a glass in recognition of a woman’s right to vote and smirk and snicker about the sorest losers in history.

Free Press International