19th Amendment

Floor Speech

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Mrs. SHAHEEN. Mr. President, I thank my neighbor and friend, Senator Collins, and Senator Feinstein--the two of them for organizing this afternoon's conversation on the floor in recognition of the 100th anniversary of the passage of the 19th Amendment.

I also begin by recognizing Senator Mikulski, who was such a trailblazer for so many women. I remember being a young woman involved in politics in the late eighties in New Hampshire right after she was elected to the Senate, and she came up and spoke to us. At the time, I was not sure there was ever an opportunity for a woman in New Hampshire to go anywhere, and listening to her made me realize there were opportunities for women everywhere, and we need to take advantage of them, so I thank Senator Mikulski.

Today we celebrate not only the passage of the 19th Amendment but the countless women who fought for decades before 1919 so that women would one day realize the full rights protected under the Constitution.

As so many of my colleagues have said, we remember women like Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott, who organized the first women's rights convention at Seneca Falls in 1848; Susan B. Anthony, who took up the fight following the first convention, and Harriet Tubman, Ida Wells, and Sojourner Truth, who worked tirelessly for women's rights all while battling the forces of slavery and racism. These women and so many others faced extraordinary obstacles as they protested, marched, lobbied, and, at times, sacrificed their own freedom so women could one day secure the right to vote.

The leaders of the women's suffrage movement understood the fundamental truth; that the rights protected under the Constitution are merely privileges if they are not enjoyed by everyone in our society.

As Susan B. Anthony put it in 1873, ``It was we, the people; not we, the white male citizens; not yet we, the male citizens; but we, the whole people, who formed the Union. And we formed it, not to give the blessings of liberty, but to secure them; not to the half of ourselves . . . . but to the whole people--women as well as men.''

The suffrage movement was, of course, an effort to achieve political equality for women, but it was also an effort to secure a more perfect Union by giving life to the ideals laid out in our founding documents. This pursuit for equality continues today, and it is in the spirit of our trailblazers that women carry on the fight for full equality under the law.

It is in that spirit that we are here this afternoon on the floor of the Senate to talk about the importance of carrying on the tradition of our Founding Mothers. These figures are an important part of our history, and because of the generations of women they inspired, their legacy lives on today. We must remember their stories and honor their sacrifices. Those sacrifices have helped shape the identity of our Nation, and it is why we celebrate these women in the same regard as we have our Founding Fathers. It is why the issue, for me, of keeping a promise to redesign the $20 bill with the likeness of Harriet Tubman is so important.

The United States was not shaped exclusively by men, and our living history, which our currency is a part of, should reflect that because the symbols that we have for our country matter.

Leaders of the women's suffrage movement rose from communities across this country, but today I would like to recognize one of the pioneers of that movement from my own State of New Hampshire, Armenia S. White.

Armenia spent most of her life in Concord, NH, which is our capital. She was active in the community, including supporting the abolitionist and temperance movements, but the cause for which she was most passionate was securing the vote for women.

Armenia was the first signer of the call for an equal suffrage convention in New Hampshire, which was held in Concord in 1868. She was also the first president of the New Hampshire Woman Suffrage Association, a position that she held for nearly 50 years. When the time came for New Hampshire to send a delegate to the American Woman Suffrage Association, organized in Cleveland, Armenia was selected and served in that position for decades.

Armenia's efforts in New Hampshire were largely responsible for the decisions by the State legislature in 1871 and 1878 to make women eligible to serve on school committees. I think it is interesting that we were eligible to serve on school committees before we were eligible to serve in the legislature. But, nevertheless, not only did she help women become eligible to serve on school committees, but she secured women a vote in local school district elections.

Sadly, Armenia never lived to see women secure the right to vote with the passage of the 19th Amendment, but her efforts to improve equality in New Hampshire and throughout the Nation left an enduring impact on the movement. It is an impact that, as the first woman elected to be Governor of New Hampshire and then elected to be Senator there, I have benefited from. I feel a deep sense of gratitude to Armenia and to so many women who came before me for forging a path so that women could one day serve in public office and so that one day we could vote.

Alice Paul, the leader of the women's suffrage movement, once described women's suffrage saying:

I always feel the movement is a sort of mosaic. Each of us puts in one little stone, and then you get a great mosaic at the end.

As we recognize and celebrate the passage of the 19th Amendment, we must remember that there is still so much work to do, and even the smallest stones contribute to this great mosaic.

I thank the Presiding Officer and thank again my colleagues, Senator Collins and Senator Feinstein, for leading this effort.

We still have a lot of work to do.

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