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Twenty-sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution

 
Oxford Companion to the US Supreme Court:

Twenty‐sixth Amendment

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In the Voting Rights Act of 1970, Congress provided that the voting age in federal, state, and local elections should be eighteen years, whereas the previous voting age had commonly been twenty‐one under state law. In Oregon v. Mitchell (1970), four members of the Supreme Court held that Congress could not set the voting age at eighteen for either federal or state and local elections, while four other members of the Court held that Congress possessed the power to set the age of eighteen as the voting age in federal as well as state and local elections. The deciding vote was cast by Justice Hugo *Black, who held that Congress could set eighteen as the age for voting in federal elections but could not do so for state and local elections; for which the voting qualifications could only be set by the states.

As a result of this decision, eighteen‐year‐olds could vote for president and vice president and members of Congress, but they could not participate in state and local elections unless permitted to do so under state law. The impending 1972 elections were thus threatened with serious complications. Responding to this situation, on 23 March 1971, Congress proposed the Twenty‐sixth Amendment to the Constitution, providing that the voting age in all federal, state, and local elections should be prescribed at eighteen. Within 107 days of its proposal by Congress, the amendment was ratified by the requisite three‐fourths of the states and became a part of the Constitution, having been ratified in the shortest period of time of any constitutional amendment in United States history.

See also Constitutional Amending Process; Constitutional Amendments; Elections; Vote, Right to.

— Richard C. Cortner

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West's Encyclopedia of American Law:

Twenty-Sixth Amendment

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This entry contains information applicable to United States law only.

The Twenty-sixth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution reads:

Section 1. The right of citizens of the United States, who are eighteen years of age or older, to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of age.

Section 2. The Congress shall have the power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

The Twenty-sixth Amendment was proposed on March 23, 1971, and ratified on July 1, 1971. The ratification period of 107 days was the shortest in U.S. history. The amendment, which lowered the voting age from twenty-one to eighteen, was passed quickly to avert potential problems in the 1972 elections.

The drive for lowering the voting age began with young people who had been drawn into the political arena by the Vietnam War. Proponents argued that if eighteen-year-olds were old enough to be drafted into military service and sent into combat, they were also old enough to vote. This line of argument was not new. It had persuaded Georgia and Kentucky to lower the minimum voting age to eighteen during World War II. The one flaw in the argument was that women were not drafted and were not allowed to serve in combat units if they enlisted in the armed forces.

Nevertheless, the drive for lowering the voting age gained momentum. In 1970 Congress passed a measure that lowered the voting age from twenty-one to eighteen in both federal and state elections (84 Stat. 314).

The U.S. Supreme Court, however, declared part of this measure unconstitutional in Oregon v. Mitchell, 400 U.S. 112, 91 S. Ct. 260, 27 L. Ed. 2d 272 (1970). The decision was closely divided. Four justices believed Congress had the constitutional authority to lower the voting age in all elections, four justices believed the opposite, and one justice, Hugo L. Black, concluded that Congress could lower the voting age by statute only in federal elections, not in state elections.

The Court's decision allowed eighteen-year-olds to vote in the 1972 presidential and congressional elections but left the states to decide if they wished to lower the voting age in their state elections. The potential for chaos was clear. Congress responded by proposing the Twenty-sixth Amendment, which required the states as well as the federal government to lower the voting age to eighteen.

Historical Documents of the United States:

Amendment XXVI to the U.S. Constitution

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Passed by Congress March 23, 1971. Ratified July 1, 1971.

Note:
Amendment 14, section 2, of the Constitution was modified by section 1 of the 26th amendment.

Section 1

The right of citizens of the United States, who are eighteen years of age or older, to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of age.

Section 2

The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

 More:

Amendment IAmendment XAmendment XIX
Amendment IIAmendment XIAmendment XX
Amendment IIIAmendment XIIAmendment XXI
Amendment IVAmendment XIIIAmendment XXII
Amendment VAmendment XIVAmendment XXIII
Amendment VIAmendment XVAmendment XXIV
Amendment VIIAmendment XVIAmendment XXV
Amendment VIIIAmendment XVIIAmendment XXVI
Amendment IXAmendment XVIIIAmendment XXVII

The Constitution
Bill of Rights (Amendments 1-10)
The Other Amendments (11-27)


Wikipedia on Answers.com:

Twenty-sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution

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The Twenty-sixth Amendment (Amendment XXVI) to the United States Constitution limited the minimum voting age to 18. It was adopted in response to student activism against the Vietnam War and to partially overrule the Supreme Court's decision in Oregon v. Mitchell. It was adopted on July 1, 1971.

Contents

Text

Section 1. The right of citizens of the United States, who are eighteen years of age or older, to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of age.

Section 2. The Congress shall have the power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

Background

In his 1954 State of the Union address, President Dwight D. Eisenhower became the first president to publicly state his support for prohibiting age-based denials of suffrage for those 18 and older.[1]

On June 22, 1970, President Richard Nixon signed a law (not a constitutional amendment) which required the voting age to be 18 in all federal, state and local elections. In his statement on signing the extension of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, Nixon stated:

Despite my misgivings about the constitutionality of this one provision, I have signed the bill. I have directed the Attorney General to cooperate fully in expediting a swift court test of the constitutionality of the 18-year-old provision.[2]

Subsequently, Oregon and Texas challenged the law in court. In Oregon v. Mitchell, 400 U.S. 112 (1970), the Supreme Court declared unconstitutional the parts of the law which required states to register 18-year-olds for state and local elections. Justice Hugo Black stated:

I would hold that Congress has exceeded its powers in attempting to lower the voting age in state and local elections.[3]

By this time, four states had a minimum voting age below 21.[4][5]

This ruling meant that the law could only apply to federal elections, which meant states would have to have separate voting rolls for voters between 18 and 20 years old and special ballots for them to vote on federal races.[6]

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 in the war, thus lacking any means to influence the people sending them off to risk their lives. "Old enough to fight, old enough to vote," was a common slogan used by proponents of lowering the voting age. The slogan traced its roots to World War II, when President Franklin D. Roosevelt lowered the military draft age to eighteen.

On March 10, 1971, the Senate voted 94–0 in favor of proposing a Constitutional amendment to guarantee that the voting age could not be higher than 18.[7] On March 23, 1971, the House of Representatives voted 401–19 in favor of the proposed amendment.[8] Within four months after the Congress submitted it to the states, the amendment was ratified by three-fourths of the state legislatures, the shortest time in which any proposed amendment has received the number of ratifications needed for adoption.

On July 5, 1971, during the amendment's signing ceremony in the East Room, President Richard Nixon talked about his confidence in the youth of America.

As I meet with this group today, I sense that we can have confidence that America’s new voters, America’s young generation, will provide what America needs as we approach our 200th birthday, not just strength and not just wealth but the “Spirit of ‘76’ a spirit of moral courage, a spirit of high idealism in which we believe in the American dream, but in which we realize that the American dream can never be fulfilled until every American has an equal chance to fulfill it in his own life.[9]

Proposal and ratification

The Twenty-sixth Amendment in the National Archives

The Congress proposed the Twenty-sixth Amendment on March 23, 1971, and the following states ratified the amendment:[10]

  1. Connecticut (March 23, 1971)
  2. Delaware (March 23, 1971)
  3. Minnesota (March 23, 1971)
  4. Tennessee (March 23, 1971)
  5. Washington (March 23, 1971)
  6. Hawaii (March 24, 1971)
  7. Massachusetts (March 24, 1971)
  8. Montana (March 29, 1971)
  9. Arkansas (March 30, 1971)
  10. Idaho (March 30, 1971)
  11. Iowa (March 30, 1971)
  12. Nebraska (April 2, 1971)
  13. New Jersey (April 3, 1971)
  14. Kansas (April 7, 1971)
  15. Michigan (April 7, 1971)
  16. Alaska (April 8, 1971)
  17. Maryland (April 8, 1971)
  18. Indiana (April 8, 1971)
  19. Maine (April 9, 1971)
  20. Vermont (April 16, 1971)
  21. Louisiana (April 17, 1971)
  22. California (April 19, 1971)
  23. Colorado (April 27, 1971)
  24. Pennsylvania (April 27, 1971)
  25. Texas (April 27, 1971)
  26. South Carolina (April 28, 1971)
  27. West Virginia (April 28, 1971)
  28. New Hampshire (May 13, 1971)
  29. Arizona (May 14, 1971)
  30. Rhode Island (May 27, 1971)
  31. New York (June 2, 1971)
  32. Oregon (June 4, 1971)
  33. Missouri (June 14, 1971)
  34. Wisconsin (June 22, 1971)
  35. Illinois (June 29, 1971)
  36. Alabama (June 30, 1971)
  37. Ohio (June 30, 1971)
  38. North Carolina (July 1, 1971)

After its adoption, four more states voted to ratify the amendment:

  1. Oklahoma (July 1, 1971)
  2. Virginia (July 8, 1971)
  3. Wyoming (July 8, 1971)
  4. Georgia (October 4, 1971)

The following states have not ratified the amendment:

  1. Florida
  2. Kentucky
  3. Mississippi
  4. Nevada
  5. New Mexico
  6. North Dakota
  7. South Dakota
  8. Utah

On July 7, 1971, the Administrator of General Services officially certified the adoption of the Twenty-sixth Amendment.[11]

References

  1. ^ Dwight D. Eisenhower, “Public Papers of the Presidents” January 7, 1954, p. 22.
  2. ^ Richard Nixon, “Public Papers of the Presidents” June 22, 1970, p. 512.
  3. ^ Wendell W. Cultice, Youth’s Battle for the Ballot: A History of Voting Age in America. (New York: Greenwood Press, 1992), 172.
  4. ^ 18 for Georgia and Kentucky, 19 for Alaska and 20 for Hawaii
  5. ^ Neale, Thomas H. The Eighteen Year Old Vote: The Twenty-Sixth Amendment and Subsequent Voting Rates of Newly Enfranchised Age Groups. 1983.(PDF)
  6. ^ http://www.learner.org/workshops/civics/workshop2/readings/youthvoting.html
  7. ^ Senate, Journal of the Senate, 92nd Congress, 1st session, 1971. S. S.J. Res. 7
  8. ^ House, Journal of the House, 92nd Congress, 1st session, 1971. H. S.J. Res. 7
  9. ^ Richard Nixon, “Public Papers of the Presidents” 5 July 1971, p. 801.
  10. ^ Mount, Steve (January 2007). "Ratification of Constitutional Amendments". http://www.usconstitution.net/constamrat.html. Retrieved February 24, 2007. 
  11. ^ http://www.law.emory.edu/law-library/research/ready-reference/us-federal-law-and-documents/historical-documents-constitution-of-the-united-states/amendment-xxvi-age-and-the-right-to-vote.html

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Oxford Companion to the US Supreme Court. The Oxford Companion to the Supreme Court of the United States. Copyright © 1992, 2005 by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved.  Read more
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