A Legacy Of Leadership:
Tennessee's Pivotal Role in Granting
All American Women The Vote

by Paula Casey
American Women's Issues Advocate

University of Tennessee - Knoxville: Winter Commencement Address - 1995

Graduations are a time for reflection and assessment. The same is true of anniversaries. This year--1995--has been full of anniversaries: the 125th anniversary of the passage of the 15th Amendment, which extended voting rights to black men after the Civil War; the 100th anniversary of coupon clipping; the 75th anniversary of the 19th Amendment, which granted voting rights to all American women (thanks to Tennessee); the 70th anniversary of the Grand Ole Opry (one of Tennessee's best known institutions); the 50th anniversary of the end of World War II as well as of the founding of the United Nations; the 45th anniversary of the Peanuts comic strip featuring Snoopy and the Gang; and 30 years of the Voting Rights Act, the Pillsbury Doughboy, and the birth control pill. As a Memphian, I remind you that this year was also the 60th anniversary of Elvis's birth.

All of these anniversaries have a special significance, but the story of the 19th Amendment's passage is one of the greatest in American history, particularly for this "great experiment we call democracy." The women and men who struggled off and on for 72 years to include women in the Constitution achieved their goal through a peaceful revolution without firing a single shot or shedding one drop of human blood.

But, ratification was obtained only after hundreds of campaigns in state after state as the suffragists met with defeat. (Incidentally, the correct term is "suffragist," not suffragette. The British were the suffragettes and were considered more "radical," so the Americans wanted to distinguish themselves and were referred to as "suffragists.")

Few know that it was women seeking the vote who first picketed the White House for a political cause, that these courageous women faced jail, hunger strikes, and forced feedings, years of organizing, ridicule, and great disappointment after the Civil War when the 14th and 15th Amendments excluded women from voting. Yet they persevered until victory was achieved in Nashville on August 18, 1920.

How many of you are aware that Tennessee was "The Perfect 36"--the last state that could possibly ratify the 19th Amendment and make it law? No other state was even close. Here's the story: When the 19th Amendment finally passed Congress on June 4, 1919, the battleground shifted to the states, where 36 of the then 48 states were needed for ratification. Wisconsin became the first state to ratify on June 10, 1919.

A string of victories followed. By the summer of 1920, 35 states had ratified, 8 had rejected it, and, with no other state even close to ratifying, the pro-suffrage forces looked to Tennessee.

In an article by Anastatia Sims entitled "Armageddon in Tennessee," she wrote: "If the suffragists could win the approval of just one more state, they would, at long last, achieve their goal. When the Delaware legislature unexpectedly defeated the amendment in early June, women pinned their hopes on Tennessee. During a steamy southern summer, Nashville, the 'Athens of the South,' became the site of one of the most fiercely fought contests in American political history. For the amendment's friends and foes alike, it was Armageddon--the final battle in the long, bitter struggle . . . ."

The pressure began for Gov. A.H. Roberts, a Democrat, to call a special session. On June 19, Sue Shelton White from Henderson, Tennessee, sent Gov. Roberts a letter requesting a special session. She had the distinction of being the only woman from Tennessee who was jailed fighting for suffrage.

Other prominent Tennesseans requested the governor call a special session so women could vote in the August 5 state primary. The opposition was so fierce that Gov. Roberts called the special session for August 9 (conveniently after his party primary).

Carrie Chapman Catt, one of the premier suffrage strategists and a protégé of Susan B. Anthony, knew this final battle in Tennessee was going to be tougher than any. She came to Nashville in July expecting to stay a few days, but was there for nearly six weeks. She wrote on August 15: "I've been here a month. It is hot, muggy, nasty, and this last battle desperate. Even if we win, we who have been here will never remember it with anything but a shudder."

"The War of the Roses" began with the anti-suffrage forces wearing the American Beauty red rose depicting their femininity and their efforts "to save Southern womanhood." The pro-suffrage forces countered with the yellow rose. The yellow rose, along with other yellow flowers, was prevalent in suffrage imagery. Susan B. Anthony was also identified with the yellow rose of suffrage.

Legislators arriving at Union Station in Nashville for the special session wore the rose reflecting their position on suffrage pinned to their lapels. One noncommittal legislator sported a talisman rose (a yellow rose with red stripes).

Thanks to the great men in the Tennessee Senate who voted 25-4 in favor of the Amendment on August 13, and, who my good friend State Senator Steve Cohen from Memphis remind me were the "real heroes" because they "got it," the House of Representatives was poised to change the course of American history during that hot, sultry summer of 1920.

But, there were heroes in the House, starting with Memphis Democrat Joe Hanover, who was the second youngest member of the General Assembly and also the son of Polish immigrants. He believed so strongly in the right to vote for all Americans that he ran for the House so he could cast his vote in favor of the 19th Amendment. He became the floor leader and kept the pro-suffrage forces together, which was no easy task.

The story is that, after the Senate's overwhelming vote in favor, Carrie Chapman Catt wrote: "We are one-half of one state away from victory."

The 72-year struggle had come down to one last vote in the Tennessee House of Representatives. Rep. Han-over led a united Shelby County delegation with Rep. T.K. Riddick of Memphis, who introduced the amendment, emphasizing that refusal to enfranchise women was "a relic of barbarism."

After all the parliamentary maneuvering, vote trading, and the devastating defection of Speaker Seth Walker of Lebanon, Tennessee, to the anti-suffrage side, debate began on Wednesday, August 18. My good friend, Carol Lynn Yellin of Memphis, has written the definitive article called "Count- down in Tennessee," which appeared in American Heritage magazine in December, 1978.

She wrote: "Oration after oration reviewed 72 years of familiar arguments until, abruptly, a self-assured Speaker Walker turned over his gavel to Representative William Overton, another staunch Anti, then made his way down to the House floor and asked to be recognized. With melodramatic flourish, Seth Walker was making it known that the Antis, just as suffragists had calculated, had at least 49 sure votes, a majority of those present and voting.

'The hour has come. The battle has been fought and won, and I move you, Mr. Speaker, that the motion to concur in the Senate action go where it belongs--to the table!' And now his strategy was clear. As double insurance, Walker was moving to kill the amendment by tabling it. Any still uneasy fence-sitters could more easily justify a vote to table than an outright vote against.

"Antis chorused 'Second the motion.' Suffragists clamored for recognition. Mr. Overton ordered the roll call to begin. There were no surprises. Harry Burn's name came early in the roll; he voted in favor of tabling. Other members answered according to expectations until the name Banks Turner was called . . . The roll call went on, but before the final vote could be announced, Turner rose. 'I wish to be recorded as against the motion to table.' Suffra- gists gasped in joy. On a tie vote, 48-48, the motion was defeated. The 19th Amendment was still alive in Tennessee!

"But not for long. The motion to table had failed on a tie vote. It seemed certain that the original motion to concur in the Senate's ratification would do likewise. Realizing this, Seth Walker immediately called for a vote on the original motion. Once more the agony of the roll call began. And this was the vote that counted."

The first two recorded votes were "aye" followed by four "nays." Harry Burn, a Republican who was the youngest member of the General Assembly, had been counted as a sure Anti since he wore the red rose. But he had not told anyone of a letter he had received that morning from his mother, Febb Ensminger Burn, of Niota. She had written: "Dear Son: Hurrah, and vote for suffrage! Don't keep them in doubt. I noticed some of the speeches against. They were bitter. I have been watching to see how you stood, but have not noticed anything yet. Don't forget to be a good boy and help Mrs. Catt put the 'rat' in ratification. Signed, Your Mother."

When his name was called, Harry Burn said "aye" so quickly that many did not realize what had happened. Banks Turner decisively shouted his "aye" and the resolution was carried 49-47. Seth Walker immediately jumped to his feet and cried out, "I change my vote from 'nay' to 'aye' and move to reconsider." It was too late.


The next day, Harry Burn rose on the floor of the House and responded to critics: "I want to take this opportunity to state that I changed my vote in favor of ratification because: 1) I believe in full suffrage as a right, 2) I believe we had a moral and legal right to ratify, 3) I know that a mother's advice is always safest for her boy to follow, and my mother wanted me to vote for ratification."

In 1923, Mrs. Catt wrote in her book, Woman Suffrage and Politics: "To get the word 'male' in effect out of the Constitution cost the women of this country 52 years of pauseless campaign . . . During that time they were forced to conduct 56 campaigns of referenda to male voters; 480 campaigns to get Legislatures to submit suffrage amendments to voters; 47 campaigns to get State constitutional conventions to write woman suffrage into state constitutions; 277 campaigns to get State party conventions to include woman suffrage planks; 30 campaigns to get presidential party conventions to adopt woman suffrage planks in party platforms, and 19 campaigns with 19 successive Congresses.

"Millions of dollars were raised, mainly in small sums, and expended with economic care. Hundreds of women gave the accumulated possibilities of an entire lifetime, thousands gave years of their lives, hundreds of thousands gave constant interest and such aid as they could. It was a continuous, seemingly endless, chain of activity. Young suffragists who helped forge the last links of that chain were not born when it began. Old suffragists who forged the first links were dead when it ended . . . .

"It is doubtful if any man, even among suffrage men, ever realized what the suffrage struggle came to mean to women before the end was allowed in America. How much time and patience, how much work, energy, and aspiration, how much faith, how much hope, how much despair went into it. It leaves its mark on one, such a struggle . . . ."

I urge you to visit the National Women's Hall of Fame in Seneca Falls, New York, where the movement really began, and see the great women who are enshrined there. Many of the most prominent suffragists are in there along with four great women with ties to Tennessee: gold medalist Wilma Rudolph of Clarksville; Ida B. Wells, who was once a Memphian; Fanny Wright, a Scotswoman who founded the Nashoba community in Shelby County; and this year's inductee, Nashville suffrage leader Anne Dallas Dudley.

It is hard for us to imagine the dedication and perseverance the suffragists maintained over the years, but we are the beneficiaries of this magnificent heritage because their determined efforts proved that peaceful revolution works.

Today, you have much to look forward to and to be grateful for as you prepare for the next chapter of your life. I wish for you good health, great love, wonderful friends, challenging work, and an abiding faith --just as the suffragists had --that right will triumph in the end.

May you always prize your right to vote and may your blood always run Orange.

Sources: Speech came from a webpage which no longer exists.
Ms. Casey can be contacted through theperfect36.com.

Copyright 1995 by Paula F. Casey. All rights reserved.