The History of Voting in the US

We’ve all been through the 2016 elections so I think we know just how
big a deal voting is to the US. I am going to speak to you today about
the history of voting in America. There are three major things I’ll be
talking about: women’s suffrage, African American freedom, and the
founding fathers of America with a little bit of Ancient Greek history.
We’ll start at the beginning of America with the founding fathers writing
the Declaration of Independence in 1776 to King George III. One of
the biggest reasons America wanted independence in the first place
was the lack of voice it had in British government. You can’t really
speak out when you have no platform to speak from. So America
made its own platform and forced King George to listen. We all know
what followed that. Let’s cut to the Revolutionary War being won and
America needing a new leader. No one wanted a repeat of what they
just escaped from so they took a page from the ancient Greeks and
went with a democratic government where they voted for their leaders;
the first being George Washington. Now the Greeks started the idea of
democracy in Athens in the year 507 BC. Cleisthenes, the leader at
the time, is credited with creating this system originally called
“demokratia” (with a “k”) which means “rule by the people.” The people
became the governing force of their own nation, largely by expressing
their voice through voting. Women and slaves were not allowed to
vote though so it was not quite perfect. The system evolved and
changed through the years to become the system we use today. Next,
we’ll fast forward from the time of the founding fathers about half a
century to women’s suffrage, which lasted from about 1840-1920. It all
started when Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton created the
first Women’s Rights Convention after being barred from an anti-
slavery convention in New York. Over the next few decades, women
fought for their rights. Specifically for their right to vote. This. was
finally achieved in 1920 as the 19th Amendment to the US
Constitution. Finally, we’ll talk about African Americans and their
freedom from slavery. In the middle of the Civil War, the famous
Emancipation Proclamation was signed by President Abraham Lincoln
which effectively ended slavery in the US. However, slavery wasn’t
officially illegal until 1865, at the end of the war. Five years later the
15th Amendment to the US Constitution was passed which prohibited
any state or federal government from denying a citizen their right to
vote based on their race, color, or previous servitude. But even after
that was passed, African Americans were discriminated against by not
being allowed to exercise their right to vote. It wasn’t until 100 years
later that president Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Voting Acts of
1965. These aimed to take down local and state barriers that kept
African Americans from voting. Basically, it reinforced the 15th
Amendment.In conclusion, voting has been one of the staples of
American society since the very beginning. It affects nearly every
aspect of our lives at least in some small way. Not only has it affected
the US, but also other countries who have followed suit like Paraguay
and Venezuela. It’s easy to see that voting in the United States has
come a long way to be the system we use today. But it’s also
important to look back on when it was not so good to remind us how
we can improve going forward.