How Voting Rights Have Evolved in the United States
February 9, 2026
As the United States approaches its 250th anniversary, understanding the history of voting rights helps illuminate how American democracy has taken shape across generations. Against that backdrop, first-year public affairs majors at the Howard H. Baker Jr. School of Public Policy and Public Affairs stepped beyond the classroom, traveling from Knoxville to Nashville and onward to Selma and Birmingham to encounter the history of voting rights, where it was contested, expanded, and secured. In this Q&A, Andrew Busch, associate director of the Institute of American Civics and a presidential scholar, reflects on the evolving role of the presidency, the constitutional amendments and landmark legislation that broadened the franchise, and Tennessee’s pivotal place in ratifying the 19th Amendment.
How would you describe the role of the president in shaping voting rights throughout U.S. history, even though constitutional amendments are ultimately ratified by the states rather than passed by the president?
Presidents have occasionally played an important role. The Constitution places most issues regarding voting rights and election administration into the hands of the states. Constitutional amendments have sometimes altered this picture, and federal civil rights legislation has given those amendments greater force. Presidents must sign and enforce legislation, but they have no formal role in the amendment process. There, their role is more rhetorical or symbolic than anything else. However, that symbolism can be important.
Can you explain how voting rights have expanded in the United States through constitutional amendments, such as the 19th Amendment, and through later voting laws, and how presidents have influenced both?
The most relevant constitutional amendments have been the 15th, which prohibited the denial of voting rights on the basis of race, the 19th, which prohibited denial of voting rights on the basis of sex, and the 26th, which prohibited the denial of voting rights on the basis of age over 18. Other amendments also played a role. The 14th Amendment’s guarantee of equal protection played a role; the 24th Amendment prohibited use of the poll tax in federal elections. While efforts were made to guarantee voting rights for blacks through legislation after the Civil War, more effective legislative measures were passed in the mid-20th Century–specifically, the Voting Rights Acts of 1957, 1960, and (especially) 1965, and the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Presidents endorsed the 19th and 26th Amendments, though somewhat late in the process. They were also important in the voting rights and civil rights laws. In particular, President Lyndon Johnson promoted and proudly signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, then used the power of the executive branch to enforce the law,
When it comes to the 19th Amendment specifically, how did presidential leadership help influence public opinion, political energy, or action at the state level, either formally or informally?
Presidential leadership played a peripheral role for most of the debate over women’s suffrage, which had been part of the nation’s discourse on and off since the 1848 Seneca Falls Declaration. For his part, President Woodrow Wilson was not a vocal supporter of women’s suffrage until he had been in office five and a half years. However, weeks before the armistice that ended World War I, Wilson endorsed a women’s suffrage amendment to the Constitution–the 19th Amendment–on the grounds that women had been part of the war effort at home and had shown themselves essential to the defense of democracy. His support proved crucial to the subsequent campaign for the amendment in Congress and in the states. Above all, his support made it easier for wavering Democrats to sign on to the amendment; Republicans were already generally supportive.
Tennessee played a decisive role as the final state needed to ratify the 19th Amendment. Why do you think Tennessee became that turning point, and what social or political factors helped make ratification possible here?
Quite simply, Tennessee became the decisive state because of mathematics. Proposed amendments must be approved by three-fourths of the states to be ratified. When the Tennessee legislature brought the amendment up for a vote, proponents had already succeeded in enough states that they were one state short. Ratification was possible because there was a well-organized and vocal movement supporting it (though there was also a significant women’s movement opposing it). Specifically, the vote in the Tennessee House of Representatives hinged on Harry Burn, a young representative who was persuaded to vote for approval by his mother, who sent him a seven-page letter urging his support. History is made by movements, but it is also made by individuals exercising agency.
How does Tennessee’s role in ratifying the 19th Amendment help illustrate the balance between federal leadership and state decision-making in American voting history?
Congress can propose constitutional amendments, but a super-majority of states have to approve them. Moreover, the wording of the 19th Amendment (like the 15th and 26th) reaffirms the original constitutional language and state role: it did not establish a positive rule, it made a negative exception to the state role, which otherwise continued. It is also worth noting that the original Constitution did not prohibit women from voting, it just left the issue up to the states. At the time the 19th Amendment passed, many states (especially in the West) already allowed women to vote. On that issue, as on many others, states served as “laboratories of democracy,” examples for future national action.
Looking back, what does the passage of the 19th Amendment, and Tennessee’s role in ratifying it, teach us about democratic participation and the growth of voting rights in the United States?
First, it teaches us that the Constitution is flexible enough to allow innovation, then broader adoption of the innovation, on important issues. Second, putting that into motion and carrying it to fruition required an active populace willing to work for its political goals. Finally, debate and deliberation in a free country are powerful and can change minds.