U.S. Constitution
of 1787
26th Amendment
#
|
US
Constitution Amendment
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Proposal Date
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Enacted Date
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26th
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Establishes the right to vote for those age 18 years or older -
Signers: Speaker of the House Carl Albert (OK-D) & US Senator Allen
Joseph Ellender (LA-D)
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March 23, 1971
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July 1, 1971
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The Twenty-sixth Amendment to the United
States Constitution bars the states and the federal government from setting a
voting age higher than eighteen. 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.
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.
President
Dwight D. Eisenhower, in his 1954 State of the Union address, became the first
president to publicly state his support for prohibiting age-based denials of
suffrage for those 18 and older. On
June 22, 1970, President Richard Nixon signed an extension of the Voting Rights
Act of 1965 that required the voting age to be 18 in all federal, state, and
local elections. In his statement on signing the extension, Nixon said: “ 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.”
Dr.Naomi Yavneh Klos at the 24th, 25th, 26th, and 27th Amendment Case |
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 that required states to register
18-year-olds for state and local elections.
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.
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 conscripted to fight in the war were
ineligible to vote, 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. On March 23, 1971, the House of
Representatives voted 401–19 in favor of the proposed amendment. 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.
Exhibited
is a photograph of the official 26th Amendment Joint Resolution of Congress,
dated, with a printed copy of the Amendment dated January 21, 1971 and signed by
Carl
Albert as Speaker of the House.
Historic.us Exhibits
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