Discover

'Amendment XXVI' (the 'Twenty-sixth Amendment') of the United States Constitution was ratified on July 1, 1971.

Contents

Text

History of the Twenty-Sixth Amendment

Proposal and ratification

References

See also

External links

Text

History of the Twenty-Sixth Amendment

Suffrage to those 18 and older was endorsed by Presidents Dwight D. Eisenhower and Lyndon Johnson. A law was passed in 1970 which was similar to the amendment, but the government of Oregon challenged it in court (''Oregon v. Mitchell''), and the Supreme Court overturned the parts of the law which required states to register 18-year-olds for state elections. By this time, five states had already granted citizens under the age of 21 the right to vote (Georgia and Kentucky observed 18 as the minimum voting age, Alaska 19, and Hawaii and New Hampshire 20), but many citizens wanted all states to do so.
Congress and the state legislatures felt increasing pressure to pass the Constitutional amendment because of the Vietnam War, in which many young men who were ineligible to vote were conscripted to fight, and died. In fact, a common slogan for young Vietnam soldiers was, "Old enough to fight, old enough to vote." The idea was that people who were old enough to be allowed to join the military should have a say in the selection of the civilian government that determines when and how military force is used. With this in his mind, President Lyndon Johnson had asked Congress to propose an amendment lowering the voting age to 18 in the summer of 1968. The amendment passed through Congress when it was reintroduced by Senator Jennings Randolph in 1971, and within months passed three-fourths of the state legislatures, quicker than any other amendment. The 26th Amendment was formally certified by President Richard Nixon on July 1, 1971.
A North Carolina congressman, Jim Beatty, worked with high school students by encouraging a petition drive in 1967-1968. Tens of thousands of petitions were collected through a collaboration of student bodies throughout the United States.

A semi-intended consequence of the 26th Amendment was that after its passage, one state after another then lowered the minimum age for exercising most other adult rights, such as marrying and signing contracts without parental consent, to 18 as well (Mississippi being the last); by the end of the 1980s all fifty states had done so.
However, because the amendment applies only to voting, many states have higher age limits for other rights; Utah, New Jersey and Alaska's minimum age for tobacco use is 19, Nevada and other states have a limit of 21 years for gambling, and though many states had lowered their drinking ages in the 1970s, the National Minimum Drinking Age Act of 1984 obliged states to set a limit of 21 years for the purchase of alcohol under threat of losing 10% of federal highway construction money.

Proposal and ratification

Congress proposed the Twenty-sixth Amendment on March 23, 1971.^[1] The following states ratified the amendment:
# Connecticut (March 23, 1971)
# Delaware (March 23, 1971)
# Minnesota (March 23, 1971)
# Tennessee (March 23, 1971)
# Washington (March 23, 1971)
# Hawaii (March 24, 1971)
# Massachusetts (March 24, 1971)
# Montana (March 29, 1971)
# Arkansas (March 30, 1971)
# Idaho (March 30, 1971)
# Iowa (March 30, 1971)
# Nebraska (April 2, 1971)
# New Jersey (April 3, 1971)
# Kansas (April 7, 1971)
# Michigan (April 7, 1971)
# Alaska (April 8, 1971)
# Maryland (April 8, 1971)
# Indiana (April 8, 1971)
# Maine (April 9, 1971)
# Vermont (April 16, 1971)
# Louisiana (April 17, 1971)
# California (April 19, 1971)
# Colorado (April 27, 1971)
# Pennsylvania (April 27, 1971)
# Texas (April 27, 1971)
# South Carolina (April 28, 1971)
# West Virginia (April 28, 1971)
# New Hampshire (May 13, 1971)
# Arizona (May 14, 1971)
# Rhode Island (May 27, 1971)
# New York (June 2, 1971)
# Oregon (June 4, 1971)
# Missouri (June 14, 1971)
# Wisconsin (June 22, 1971)
# Illinois (June 29, 1971)
# Alabama (June 30, 1971)
# Ohio (June 30, 1971)
# North Carolina (July 1, 1971)
# Oklahoma (July 1, 1971)
Ratification was completed on July 1, 1971. The amendment was subsequently ratified by the following states:
# Virginia (July 8, 1971)
# Wyoming (July 8, 1971)
# Georgia (October 4, 1971)

References

1. Ratification of Constitutional Amendments

See also

★ Voting Rights amendments in United States:

★
★ 15th Amendment: Grants equal voting rights to all male citizens, without respect to race or former slave status

★
★ 19th Amendment: Equal voting rights without respect to sex

★
★ 24th Amendment: Abolishes poll tax requirement

★ Fourth Amendment of the Constitution of Ireland, lowered voting age to 18

★ Age of majority

★ Double standard

External links

★ National Archives: 26th Amendment

★ CRS Annotated Constitution: 26th Amendment