ICYMI: Co-Chair Day: “Susan B. Anthony, Republicans, and a Mother's Letter: The 19th Amendment's Road to Ratification”

Excerpts from BlogHer

By: RNC Co-Chair Sharon Day
August 18, 2013

Today we mark the anniversary of the ratification of the 19th Amendment. Ninety-three years later, it’s easy to forget the long fight for the amendment—a struggle that spanned decades and ended with a mother’s last minute letter to her Republican son in the Tennessee legislature.
 
The 19th Amendment was first introduced in Congress in 1878 by Republican Senator Aaron A. Sargent…
 
The Amendment languished in Congress for decades until 1919. In the 1918 election, Republicans won control of both chambers, and the next year the amendment passed both the House and the Senate, sending it to the states for ratification.
 
In August of 1920, ratification hinged on the state of Tennessee, where the legislature was sharply divided…
 
But no one expected that the 24-year-old Republican legislator Harry Burn was going to have a change of heart…
 
Burn later explained his vote in a speech: “I believe we had a moral and legal right to ratify….”
 
Women’s right to vote was won by the decades-long determination of pioneering suffragists. It was supported along the way by forward-looking Republicans…

Read the full post: http://bit.ly/1cQDB12

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