Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution The Nineteenth Amendment (Amendment XIX) to the United States Constitution prohibits the states and the federal government from denying the right to vote to citizens of the United States on the basis of sex. It was adopted on August 18, 1920. The amendment was the culmination of the women's suffrage movement in the United States, which fought at both state and national levels to achieve the vote. It effectively overruled "Minor v. Happersett" (1875), in which a unanimous Supreme Court ruled that the Fourteenth Amendment did not give women the right to vote.
Eighteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution its ratification. That clause of the amendment was challenged, with the case reaching the US Supreme Court. It upheld the constitutionality of such a deadline in "Dillon v. Gloss" (1921). The Supreme Court also upheld the ratification by the Ohio legislature in "Hawke v. Smith" (1920), despite a petition requiring that the matter go to ballot. This was not the only controversy around the amendment. The phrase "intoxicating liquor" would not logically have included beer and wine (as they are not distilled), and their inclusion in the prohibition came as a surprise to the general public, as well as wine