GOOD OLD NO. XV

The Fifteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, as ratified on February 3, 1870, proudly declares that citizens’ voting rights shall not be denied or abridged due to race, color, or previous condition of servitude.

We must now ask how said wording might appear to mean from a 21st century schoolchild’s viewpoint. We can’t help but feel that his or her understanding would be that every American citizen could head straight to the polls on all election days thereafter.

Well, Kids, ‘tain’t so. The teacher will have to mark your answer wrong in this particular case.

Considering the era in which this amendment became law, the obvious implication at the time was that such right would continue to be restricted to members of the unfair sex only, be their skin white, black, red, brown, blue, or green.

Actually, doesn’t it sound a bit preposterous that no necessity whatsoever called for the words male citizens, rather than just citizens? Talk about chauvinism!

So how did our latter 19th century ladies react in combating this effrontery? Were there protest marches down New York’s Fifth Avenue, fiery speeches from soapboxes across the land, or armies of female pickets outside the White House? As far as we can determine, no such endeavors were undertaken. Having been formally deprived of such right by every state since 1807, our womenfolk knew their place, and continued to content themselves at the spinning wheel and in the kitchen, while tending to a nursery filled with youngsters. Otherwise, they may have been subject to victimization by tar and feathers, or maybe even a horsewhip.

It took another 50 (count ‘em) 50 years before voting privileges were extended to the distaff side, and only after a lengthy and tedious bout with all those stuffy hidebound men running the show, as had been the practice for countless millennia.

Our sole remaining question is why did it take so much blooming time for a leading world nationality, not to mention the entire human race, to resolve what we view today as an utterly logical issue?