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The Twenty-Sixth Amendment University of Mississippi eGrove Electronic Theses and Dissertations Graduate School 1-1-2016 The Twenty-Sixth Amendment Russell James Henderson University of Mississippi Follow this and additional works at: https://egrove.olemiss.edu/etd Part of the History Commons Recommended Citation Henderson, Russell James, "The Twenty-Sixth Amendment" (2016). Electronic Theses and Dissertations. 1419. https://egrove.olemiss.edu/etd/1419 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at eGrove. It has been accepted for inclusion in Electronic Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of eGrove. For more information, please contact egrove@olemiss.edu. THE TWENTY-SIXTH AMENDMENT A Dissertation presented in partial fulfillment of requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of History The University of Mississippi by Russell James Henderson May 2016 Copyright Russell James Henderson 2016 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED ABSTRACT This dissertation is a history of the Twenty-Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution. Passed by Congress in 1971, it set the national suffrage age at eighteen for all state and federal elections. It remains the last federal amendment to broaden voting rights and the most quickly ratified amendment to the Constitution. Those few scholars who have written about the 18-vote law uniformly explain that it emerged as recompense for patriotic duty; i.e. if teenagers were old enough to fight for America in Vietnam, they were also old enough to vote in U.S. elections. This dissertation agrees that young Americans certainly deserved enfranchisement. It argues, however, that youth earned suffrage not as a reward for their public service but in recognition of their personal aptitude and political gumption. Beginning during World War II, federal lawmakers offered legislation to set eighteen as the national age of enfranchisement. In the 1960s, public support for the 18-vote swelled as young people challenged authoritarian institutions and orthodox values. Creative legislative maneuvering by a small group of dedicated congressmen managed to extend suffrage to 18-year-olds through an amendment to the Voting Rights Act of 1970. They steered the rider through a skeptical Congress by persuading their colleagues that adolescents were capable of mature deliberation and beneficial civic involvement. In an era when generational revolution appeared ii a real possibility, many legislators believed formally melding youths into the electoral fold would be a tenable way to sustain sociopolitical order. However, other lawmakers thought establishing youth suffrage via statute violated the Constitution. In 1970, the Supreme Court ruled in Oregon v. Mitchell that Congress could only regulate voting ages in federal elections and not for state or local polls. Congress reversed the Court’s decision by passing the Twenty-Sixth Amendment. After nearly thirty years of gestation, the 18-vote measure sailed through the Article V ratification process in record time – a mere 100 days – to become law in July 1971. Passage of the amendment induced state governments to lower the basic age of legal majority to eighteen for most ventures. iii DEDICATION To my parents, Dennis and LaDonna, for their love, my life, and a red stick To my children, Madeleine and Jack, for their love and patience while Daddy was in the basement To my wife, Susan, for her love, encouragement, inspiration, and red pen iv ACKNOWLEDGMENTS No man is an island, and I could not have completed this dissertation without the aid and succor of many people. Thanking them for their generous aid and support is one of the happy pleasures of completing this dissertation. The History Department of the University of Mississippi charitably provided a travel grant in fall 1997 that launched the research. My employer, East Central College in Union, Missouri, kindly granted a semester sabbatical so I could advance my work. Thanks to the staffs of the J.D. Williams Library at the University of Mississippi, the Mercantile Library at the University of Missouri-St. Louis, the Ellis Library at the University of Missouri-Columbia, the John M. Olin and Law Libraries at Washington University, the Bentley Historical Library at the University of Michigan, the Hargrett Rare Book and Manuscript Collection and Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies at the University of Georgia, the University Archives and Records Center at the University of Louisville, the Birch Bayh Senatorial Collection at the Indiana University, the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library at the University of Michigan, and the Harry S Truman Presidential Library in Independence, Missouri for their assistance. I extend special thanks to Dr. Robert Florian of Salem International University in Salem, West Virginia. He was a most gracious host to the Jennings Randolph Papers. I v am immensely grateful for the generous access he allowed. I extend sincere thanks to Dr. Charles Eagles. He initiated my research interest in the Twenty-Sixth Amendment by suggesting that an amateurish research essay held the potential to become a dissertation topic. His patient prodding and firm, but kind, words over the years motivated me to liberate myself from the desert of A.B.D. status. Most especially, I thank him for encouraging me to become and teaching me how to be a historian. The lessons he imparted inside of class and in personal conversations have shaped my approach to this profession. I try, as they say, to “pay forward” those lessons each day to my own students. If I have one-tenth the impact on them that Dr. Eagles had me, I will consider my career a success. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT .................................................................................................................... ii DEDICATION ............................................................................................................... iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ............................................................................................ v INTRODUCTION .......................................................................................................... 1 THE TYRANNY OF THE (LEGAL) MAJORITY: ADOLESCENCE, ADULTOCRACY, AND VOTING AGES ............................................................... 14 WAR, YOUTH, AND SUFFRAGE, 1940-1945 ........................................................... 43 CITIZEN OR OUTLIER: TEENAGERS AND SUFFRAGE, 1945-1960 ................. 152 LIBERALS, YOUTH, AND THE 18-VOTE, 1960-1971 ........................................... 265 CONCLUSION ........................................................................................................... 375 BIBLIOGRAPHY ....................................................................................................... 393 VITA ........................................................................................................................... 428 vii CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION 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. Twenty-Sixth Amendment1 On 1 July 1971, the headline of the New York Times, America’s paper of record, blared in bold, thick print the thrilling end to a remarkable legal fracas: the Supreme Court declared the Times could resume publishing the top-secret Pentagon Papers. The Court’s ruling halted the first ever attempt by the federal government to restrain the publication of a newspaper in American history. The Times justifiably trumpeted the decision and the paper’s role in defending a free press. The other front-page news fit to print that day received more modest coverage. Below the fold, tucked between stories about political bribery in New Orleans and military pay raises, the Times conveyed the approval of a twenty-sixth amendment to the United States Constitution.2 The Times had not, of course, overlooked the 1 The words of the Twenty-Sixth Amendment can be readily found in any source that contains the text of the United States Constitution. The amendment appears officially in 85 Stat. 825. 2 R.W. Apple, Jr., “The States Ratify Full Vote at 18,” New York Times, 1 July 1971, p. 1. 1 amendment, but it appeared overshadowed by the sensational splash of the Pentagon Papers ruling. The Times’s plain reporting of what would typically be historic news – the most quickly ratified of all the federal amendments – made passage of the Twenty-Sixth Amendment appear underwhelming. The ordinary coverage of its ratification accurately encapsulated the public’s relative indifference to its enactment yet ignored the remarkable circumstances that led to its establishment of eighteen as America’s uniform voting age.3 The debate over reducing the national voting age from 21 to 18 began quietly during the Civil War. It ebbed thereafter until it captured the public’s attention during World War II. Between 1942 and 1970, congressmen filed hundreds of bills calling for a lowered voting age; in 1969 alone, over 60 resolutions were introduced. Only one, in 1954, resulted in any action, and it failed to pass the Senate. Despite public support from presidents Dwight Eisenhower, John Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, and Richard Nixon, efforts to establish a federal suffrage age remained stalled. A handful of states, however, moved to lower their official voting
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