SLS 19RS-69 ORIGINAL
2019 Regular Session
SENATE CONCURRENT RESOL UTION NO. 39
BY SENATORS MIZELL, BARROW, COLOMB, HEWITT AND PETERSON AND
REPRESENTATIVES AMEDEE, CARPENTER, DAVIS,
DUBUISSON, EMERSON, HILFERTY, HODGES, HORTON,
JACKSON, NANCY LANDRY, MARCELLE, MOORE, NORTON,
SMITH, STOKES, THOMAS AND WHITE
LEGIS POWERS/FUNCTIONS. Recognizes the Centennial Anniversary of the ratification
of the 19
th
Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
1 A CONCURRENT RESOL UTION
2 To recognize the Centennial Anniversary of the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment
3 to the United States Constitution.
4 WHEREAS, the fight for women's suffrage was a lengthy one and brought many
5 disparate groups and individuals to a common cause, believing in and working for the
6 enfranchisement of women in the United States; and
7 WHEREAS, no one event resulted in the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment to
8 the U.S. Constitution, rather the movement for women's suffrage began in 1848, more than
9 seventy years before the final ratification; and
10 WHEREAS, the march toward women's suffrage began at a convention in Seneca
11 Falls, New York, which involved a hundred advocates and produced a Declaration of
12 Sentiments, which outlined grievances and set an agenda for the movement; and
13 WHEREAS, over the next more than forty years, including an eighteen-year hiatus
14 occasioned by the Civil War, the movement grew and gained momentum; and
15 WHEREAS, in 1869, a split occurred in the suffragist movement, resulting in
16 Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton forming the "National Woman Suffrage
17 Association", whose primary goal was to achieve voting rights for women by means of a
18 congressional amendment to the Constitution, which would then require three-quarters of
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SLS 19RS-69 ORIGINAL
1 the states to ratify the amendment before its inclusion in the Constitution; and
2 WHEREAS, Lucy Stone, Henry Blackwell, and others formed the American Woman
3 Suffrage Association, which focused on achieving voting rights for women through
4 individual state constitutions; and
5 WHEREAS, in 1872, Susan B. Anthony was arrested for voting in the presidential
6 election for Ulysses S. Grant; and
7 WHEREAS, once the two major groups fighting for women's suffrage merged into
8 the National Woman Suffrage Association, the movement became considered mainstream
9 and in 1896, the National Association of Colored Women was formed, and in 1913, with the
10 formation of what would be known as the National Woman's Party, the movement's players
11 were all engaged in the fight for women's suffrage; and
12 WHEREAS, Colorado became the first state to adopt an amendment granting women
13 the right to vote in 1893, followed by Utah, and Idaho; and
14 WHEREAS, in 1918, President Woodrow Wilson announced that women's suffrage
15 was urgently needed as a "war measure", and in 1919, the amendment, which was originally
16 written by Susan B. Anthony in the previous century, was passed by Congress, sent to the
17 states to be ratified, and was subsequently ratified by twenty-two states, including New
18 York; and
19 WHEREAS, on August 26, 1920, the Nineteenth Amendment to the U.S.
20 Constitution, having been ratified by the requisite number of states, became a part of the
21 Constitution, and women in the United States were at last fully enfranchised; and
22 WHEREAS, this lengthy struggle for the right to vote culminated in women voting
23 in the 1920 presidential election, which Warren G. Harding won; and
24 WHEREAS, over this current year and 2020, events are planned around the country
25 to celebrate this momentous enactment; and
26 WHEREAS, the struggle for women's suffrage was lengthy and bitter, and the
27 eventual triumph by the movement lagged behind many states that had granted women the
28 right to vote in state elections, overturned a decision by the United States Supreme Court that
29 granting women the right to vote was unconstitutional, and followed numerous countries
30 around the world who had fully enfranchised women prior to 1920.
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SLS 19RS-69 ORIGINAL
1 THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED that the Legislature of Louisiana does hereby
2 recognize the Centennial Anniversary of the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment to
3 the United States Constitution on August 26, 1920, following ratification by Tennessee, as
4 the requisite number of states had then ratified, and fully enfranchised women in the United
5 States.
The original instrument and the following digest, which constitutes no part
of the legislative instrument, were prepared by Mary Dozier O'Brien.
DIGEST
SCR 39 Original 2019 Regular Session Mizell
Recognizes the Centennial Anniversary of the ratification of the 19th Amendment to the
U.S. Constitution, fully enfranchising women.
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