Why did some suffragists think that the Fourteenth Amendment protected women's voting rights?

0:05They had to make good arguments, and that they were quite good at. There were some false starts, but there were also some good starts. They focused on state legislatures at first, because they correctly knew that the Constitution put this in the hands of the states. But, after the Civil War, in 1872, there was a presidential election, and what had happened in the meantime was the 14th Amendment to the Constitution had been passed. And the 14th Amendment begins with a clause that guarantees to all American citizens the privileges, or immunities of citizenship. Susan B. Anthony, who was another great in this struggle, she interpreted the 14th Amendment to give women the right to vote. She said correctly, "I'm a citizen,

0:58and the right to vote is one of the privileges or immunities of citizenship." She decided she was going to march into the polling booth and vote, and she did. She actually expected they'd try to stop her, and they didn't. She was surprised at that. Then, like, two weeks later, she got arrested for voting without proper credentials. In the meantime, a few other women around the country had done the same thing. The issue made it up to the Supreme Court, and the Supreme Court said, no, 14th Amendment does not give women the right to vote. At that point, they decided they were going to focus on amending the Constitution. That then became eventually, and it took decades, that became the 19th Amendment.