June 4, 1919

Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution

Senate Approves and Congress Submits the Nineteenth Amendment

Suffragists packed the gallery as the proposal cleared its last congressional obstacle, 56 to 25. It was not law that day — it was now a question for 36 state legislatures.

4 June 1919: the last vote in Congress

The Senate approved House Joint Resolution 1 by 56 votes to 25 on 4 June 1919, completing congressional approval of the proposed suffrage amendment. The House had already passed it on 21 May, so the Senate vote was Congress's final legislative action.

Suffragists packed the Senate gallery. Minutes after the vote, Vice President Thomas Marshall signed the resolution during a ceremony in his Capitol office.

What was actually submitted

Congress had sent the states an amendment barring the United States or any state from denying or abridging a citizen's vote on account of sex.

That is not the same as conferring the ballot on every woman. Citizenship rules and race-based and other discriminatory barriers stood untouched by the text.

Thirty-six legislatures away

Nothing became constitutional law on 4 June. The proposal now went to the state legislatures, three-fourths of which — 36 of the 48 states — had to ratify.

Seventeen states ratified within four months of congressional passage. The House vote itself left two numbers in the record: the published Congressional Record carried an erroneous 304–90, while the corrected tally is 304–89.

Sources

Researched 23 Aug 2026 6 sources 2 audit passes

How this was checked

Researched from the web into a fact sheet, rewritten from that sheet, then audited against it by a different model. How the pipeline works →