The framers of the Constitution did not spend a lot of time deciding issues of suffrage — they left it to be one of the issues to be decided on a state by state basis. And the states conflicted — sometimes violently — over the issue of allowing and counting African Americans in civil decisions (the 3/5ths compromise being an early example). The only agreement was the needlessness of allowing women to vote, but that point was hotly debated by suffragists, led by Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Candy Stanton.

On this day, August 18, in 1920, with Tennessee becoming the 36th state to ratify the 19th Amendment to the Constitution, the right for all women to vote became a law.

Elizabeth Candy Stanton introduced the amendment back in January of 1878, but Congress delayed voting on it for a full nine years, and then rejected by a 2-1 margin. There would be no more discussion of an amendment for nearly three decades, but where the federal government remained silent, the new Western states readily granted women voting rights. Their progressive spirit, supported by president-elect Woodrow Wilson, inspired Congress to take up the matter again.