Jerry writes:

> I wish I knew!  I didn't have anything here on the constitution so thought
>  I'd look it up tonight when I got home. And I simply don't have a lot of
> time
>  to search the Internet/Library of Congress today. I just copy these things
>  off the
>  calendar I have (can't you tell by the periodic spelling errors)....I don't
>  try to interpret them too much... :-)

Actually, I thought that this was another of the "periodic spelling errors" --
and I was just kidding around. I thought that you had misspelled "female" in
your note, regarding the rights of women to vote. But the problem is: you have
it right!

In fact, I thought that you had several errors in your text, not only a
misspelling but also the date and the number of the ammendment. Women didn't
get the vote until early in this century; moreover the ammendment number was
higher. The 13th, 14th, and 15th ammendments dealt with the abolition of
slavery following the end of the American Civil War. However, after looking it
up, I was reminded ("hit upside the head with a 2 x 4") that the Women's
Movement and the Abolition of Slavery Movement were intimately intertwined
during the middle of the last century. See:

     http://www.nara.gov/education/teaching/woman/15th.html

While women's rights weren't able to be established by 1870, the right of all
men (but aimed primarily at black men) to vote was by the 15th Ammendment.
Women didn't obtain that right nationally until 1920 with the passage of 19th
Ammendment, although they were fully franchised in many of the Western states
by the end of the 1890's, Wyoming being the first in 1869. When the Wyoming
territory applied for statehood in 1890, a good number of men in Washington
were against votes for women, but the Wyoming legislature resolved that "We
may stay out of the Union for 100 years, but we will come in with our women."

Wirt