Fighting to Vote

Fighting to Vote

For many centuries people had to fight for there right to vote, because of color issues and gender. But know it seems that there is another problem regarding to voting, and that being of the age. What was keeping people from voting back than? And what is keeping people from casting there votes right now?

The first thing keeping person from voting was their race, blacks being the one to stand out more back than. It all started back around in the 1980's, where black slaves wanted to vote at the time, but they weren't allowed to do so. A few years later the Thirteenth Amendment was added to the Constitution in 1865, it basically made slavery now illegal in the United States. Many states passed this to protect the black people against slavery, but most of the whites where against racial equality. Their for making most of the white fight against similar laws that congress tried to pass down. In addition to all of this some states did not accept the Thirteenth Amendment, because they believed freeing the slaves would cause many problems. Even though the Fourteenth's Amendment protected the rights for freed slaves, they still didn't have all of the freedom of voting like other races. The turn around for all this wasn't until the Fifteenth Amendment, It prohibited the national and state governments from refusing citizens the right to vote because of their race, color, or because they were a slave at one time. After the Fifteenth Amendment was passed, a large number of Blacks voted during the late 1860's through the 1880's. The African-Americans used their voting rights to gain political power and to protect their rights. Even though the people couldn't vote back than because of there color, that still wasn't the only thing keeping people from voting. Another problem was that women couldn't vote either at a time, and they also had to fight for there right. (http://library.thinkquest.org/J0112391/the_right_to_vote.htm, Page 1)

Another problem with voting along time ago was that a woman wasn't allowed to vote at that time. It wasn't seriously fought until it was proposed in the United States in July 1848, at the Seneca Falls Woman's rights convention organized by Elizabeth Candy Station and Lucretia Mott. They created a group called the National Woman Suffrage Association, with the object of securing an amendment to the Constitution in favor of woman suffrage.