# Did the 19th amendment give women the right to be ELECTED? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [April 12, 2005, 3:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-19th-amendment-give-women-the-right-to-be-elected/298923 "2005-04-12T03:54:59Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![alphaboi867](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alphaboi867/32/3898_2.png) [@alphaboi867](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alphaboi867)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2005, 3:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-19th-amendment-give-women-the-right-to-be-elected/298923/1 "2005-04-12T03:54:59Z")
> [@](#): > > The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex. > Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation. Now obviously women can run for office _now_, but did the 19th amendment overide state bans on women running for election? Or did all states get rid of them after women got the vote. Did states try to prevent women from standing for election on the grounds that they only had the right to _vote_? ---
**Author:** ![BobT](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/8e8cbc/32.png) [@BobT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobT)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2005, 3:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-19th-amendment-give-women-the-right-to-be-elected/298923/2 "2005-04-12T03:59:07Z")
IANACL, but the right to vote and eligibility to run for office are two different things. Or they can be. In California, they are one in the same. If you’re a registered voter, you are eligible to run for any statewide office, such as Governor. You couldn’t run for the U.S. Senate or the House until you met the U.S. Constitution’s minimum requirements. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2005, 4:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-19th-amendment-give-women-the-right-to-be-elected/298923/3 "2005-04-12T04:14:56Z")
> [@alphaboi867](#): > > Now obviously women can run for office _now_, but did the 19th amendment overide state bans on women running for election? Or did all states get rid of them after women got the vote. Did states try to prevent women from standing for election on the grounds that they only had the right to _vote_? I’m not sure there were bans on women running for office. Victoria Woodhull ran for President in 1872, and Belva Lockwood in 1884 and 1888. Lockwood received over 4,000 official votes (others were apparently discarded as being “incorrect” votes). The first woman elected to federal office was Jeannette Rankin, a Republican from Montana, who was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1917, before the 19th Amendment was ratified. Note that a number of states permitted women to vote in state and local elections long before the 19th Amendment. See here: [http://www.cawp.rutgers.edu/Facts/Officeholders/firsts.html](http://www.cawp.rutgers.edu/Facts/Officeholders/firsts.html) ---
**Author:** ![alphaboi867](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alphaboi867/32/3898_2.png) [@alphaboi867](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alphaboi867)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2005, 4:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-19th-amendment-give-women-the-right-to-be-elected/298923/4 "2005-04-12T04:27:36Z")
There weren’t any bans on women running for _federal_ office, but I know some states included the word _male_ in listing qualifications for offices. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2005, 4:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-19th-amendment-give-women-the-right-to-be-elected/298923/5 "2005-04-12T04:52:14Z")
> [@alphaboi867](#): > > There weren’t any bans on women running for _federal_ office, but I know some states included the word _male_ in listing qualifications for offices. Of course, one of the major qualifications for office would be citizenship. While the Consititution does not spell out who qualifies as a citizen, it seems to be implicit that this category did not include slaves, Indians, or women. ---
**Author:** ![aahala](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/a88e4f/32.png) [@aahala](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aahala)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2005, 5:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-19th-amendment-give-women-the-right-to-be-elected/298923/6 "2005-04-12T05:07:30Z")
> [@BobT](#): > > In California, they are one in the same. If you’re a registered voter, you are eligible to run for any statewide office, such as Governor. Well, they had to limit it someway.😃 There were about 250 persons who completed one or more of the steps to have their name placed on the ballot with Arnold. There were several times that many who made inquiry to some election office as to how they could get on the ballot. ---
**Author:** ![BobT](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/8e8cbc/32.png) [@BobT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobT)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2005, 5:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-19th-amendment-give-women-the-right-to-be-elected/298923/7 "2005-04-12T05:11:20Z")
> [@Colibri](#): > > Of course, one of the major qualifications for office would be citizenship. While the Consititution does not spell out who qualifies as a citizen, it seems to be implicit that this category did not include slaves, Indians, or women. Women, before the 19th Amendment, were citizens. So were children. As long as they weren’t Indians or slaves. They could get passports and such couldn’t they? ---
**Author:** ![Otto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/bbe5ce/32.png) [@Otto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Otto)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2005, 1:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-19th-amendment-give-women-the-right-to-be-elected/298923/8 "2005-04-12T13:12:41Z")
> [@BobT](#): > > one in the same This should be one _and_ the same. Although they mean the same thing for all intensive purposes. ---
**Author:** ![Freddy\_the\_Pig](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/a587f6/32.png) [@Freddy\_the\_Pig](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freddy_the_Pig)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2005, 2:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-19th-amendment-give-women-the-right-to-be-elected/298923/9 "2005-04-12T14:08:14Z")
1. Women and children have always been understood to be citizens of their respective states and of the United States. 2. There is not a one-to-one correspondence between citizenship and either voting or holding office. Many citizens cannot and could not vote or hold office, and, at various times and places, some non-citizens can and could vote or hold office. 3. The question of whether there is a one-to-one correspondence between voting and holding office is harder to answer. Some states explicitly connect the two, making eligibility to vote for an office be a qualification for holding the office. At the federal level, when Congress debated the Fifteenth Amendment (which prevents states from restricting suffrage by race), early drafts of the amendment also prevented states from restricting the right to hold office. The final draft of the amendment dropped this extension, possibly because Congress felt it was superfluous–if you could vote for an office, naturally you could run for that office. (Of course, this logic collapses with respect to age restrictions.) In general, if states had explicit bans on women holding office, they repealed those bans at the same time they granted women the vote. If any state _attempted_ to maintain a ban on women holding office after 1920–and I have no knowledge that any did–the issue never reached the Supreme Court. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2005, 2:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-19th-amendment-give-women-the-right-to-be-elected/298923/10 "2005-04-12T14:20:46Z")
> [@Freddy the Pig](#): > > 1. Women and children have always been understood to be citizens of their respective states and of the United States. Cite? I’m not necessarily disputing this, I would just like to know what the specific basis for this statement is. ---
**Author:** ![Freddy\_the\_Pig](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/a587f6/32.png) [@Freddy\_the\_Pig](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freddy_the_Pig)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2005, 6:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-19th-amendment-give-women-the-right-to-be-elected/298923/11 "2005-04-12T18:04:41Z")
In the Dred Scott case, Chief Justice Taney based his blanket denial of African American citizenship partly on the fact that many states denied _political_ rights to black people. Critics at the time pointed out that this was foolish, since the same argument could _but obviously didn’t_ apply to women. Justice Curtis, in dissent, wrote: > [@](#): > > So, in all the States, numerous persons, **though citizens** , cannot vote, or cannot hold office, either on account of **their age, or sex** , or the want of the necessary legal qualifications. The truth is, that citizenship, under the Constitution of the United States, is not dependent on the possession of any particular political or even of all civil rights; and any attempt so to define it must lead to error. Justice McLean, on the same point, noted that “women and minors may sue in the federal courts” (on diversity of citizenship grounds). The various federal naturalization acts, [beginning in 1790](http://foia.state.gov/masterdocs/07fam/07m1150.pdf), referenced “persons” instead of “men” and included provisions under which children of American parents would automatically become citizens, so women and children were clearly comprehended within citizenship at the time. ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2005, 11:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-19th-amendment-give-women-the-right-to-be-elected/298923/12 "2005-04-12T23:14:11Z")
> [@Colibri](#): > > > [@Freddy the Pig](#): > > > > 1. Women and children have always been understood to be citizens of their respective states and of the United States. > > Cite? I’m not necessarily disputing this, I would just like to know what the specific basis for this statement is. Well, it’s been explicit ever since the [Fourteenth Amendment](http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/data/constitution/amendment14/) came into force: > [@](#): > > **Section. 1.** All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. As **Freddy the Pig** notes, the principle was also recognised prior to the Civil War in _Dredd Scott_.