When the polls open on Election Day, every citizen eighteen and older will be able to cast a vote. It is a right that defines our nation, but one we often take for granted. Our right to vote did not emerge instantly with the ratification of our Constitution. At the birth of our nation, you had to be white (except in a few Northern states), male (except in New Jersey) and a landowner to be allowed to vote. Some states even had religious qualifications. At the time the Constitution was written, it is estimated that only 6 percent of American males were permitted to vote.
Even after African Americans were allowed to vote after the Civil War, they were excluded from voting booths for almost 100 years by devices such as the poll tax, literacy tests, grandfather clauses and intimidation.
After Susan B. Anthony was arrested in 1872 for casting an “illegal” vote in the presidential election, she delivered a powerful speech defending women’s right to vote. After quoting the preamble of the Constitution, she continued, “It was we, the people, not we, the white male citizens; nor we, the male citizens; but we, the whole people, who formed the Union. And we formed it, not to give the blessings of liberty, but to secure them; not to the half of ourselves and the half of our posterity, but to the whole people—women as well as men. And it is a downright mockery to talk to women of their enjoyment of the blessings of liberty while they are denied the use of the only means of securing them provided by this democratic-republican government—the ballot.”
Women were granted suffrage in 1920 under the 19th Amendment to the Constitution and the right to vote was extended to 18-year-olds in 1971 under the 26th Amendment. But with every right comes responsibility. Inherent in our right to vote is our responsibility to exercise that most basic duty of citizenship on Election Day. Our ability to shape our government’s policies and accordingly our future is the blessing democracy bestows upon us. To discard that opportunity is to disparage the sacrifices of those patriots who have fought and given their lives to secure that right. Freedom in America is more likely to die from neglect than from attack.
Nothing
is more essential to the preservation of our freedoms than our right to vote.
Our generation cannot afford to fall victim to the cynicism that our vote doesn’t
matter, that we cannot make a difference. Such deceptions undermine the basic
ideals upon which this nation was founded. It is our duty as American voters
to educate ourselves and then vote intelligently.
In the words of Samuel Adams: “Let each citizen remember at the moment he is offering his vote that he is executing one of the most solemn trusts in human society for which he is accountable to God and his country.” (Boston Gazette, April 16, 1781)