West Virginia Ratifies the 19th Amendment, March 10, 1920

West Virginia’s 1863 state constitution limited the vote to white men (African American men were given the vote with the 15^th Amendment, but WV laws largely prevented them from voting). In 1867, state senator Samuel Young attempted to introduce a resolution in favor of women’s suffrage, but it failed. The West Virginia women’s suffrage movement formalized in 1895 with the organization of the West Virginia Equal Suffrage Association (WVESA). The work of the WVESA in tandem with the Women’s Christian Temperance Union created enough support that the House of Delegates passed a women’s suffrage amendment in 1913. It failed to pass the Senate, but when introduced again in 1915 the amendment was passed by both houses of the state legislature. The amendment then went to a statewide referendum in 1916 where it was soundly defeated. Once Congress passed the 19th Amendment in 1919, West Virginia had possibly the most dramatic ratification process. The tension was already high because women needed three more states to ratify the 19th Amendment and it was not clear which way West Virginia would vote.

West Virginia suffragists had faced severe defeat at the state level in 1916 and the West Virginia Equal Suffrage Association had switched its focus to supporting a national amendment for suffrage. Suffragists led by Julia Ruhl and Lenna Lowe Yost campaigned for ratification.

When the 19^th Amendment was passed from Congress to the states for ratification, the West Virginia legislature was not supposed to meet until after the 1920 elections. To ratify the amendment the governor would need to call a special session, but suffragists were initially hesitant to press for that since there had been a special session in 1919 and there was demoralization from 1916. Lenna Lowe Yost worked as the chairman of the ratification committee and she quietly began petitioning politicians to see how much support was there for the amendment and by September 1918 the suffragists felt that there was at least majority support in both the House and Senate.

While West Virginia women were hesitant to put heavy pressure on the governor, the National American Woman Suffrage Association needed West Virginia to address ratification for their larger strategy. Carrie Chapman Catt wrote directly to Governor John Cornwell to encourage him to call a special session for the amendment in early 1920. Support for women’s suffrage was mixed in West Virginia and with the costs of calling a special session, Governor Cornwell was hesitant to call a session only for the 19^th Amendment. Cornwell assured Catt that it was likely he would call a special session for another tax issues and he could probably include the amendment in that session. Cornwell called for a special session to begin on February 27, 1920 and dozens of petitions with thousands of signatures started pouring into both houses of the legislature on the matter of suffrage.

The West Virginia state legislature met in special session for 12 days with heavy lobbying from both pro- and anti-suffrage delegations. On March 1, the state senate vote ended in a tie 14-14. Two days later, the House approved ratification 47-40, but the Senate deadlocked at 14-14 again. It appeared that West Virginia was not going to ratify the 19th Amendment, but pro-suffragists contacted state Senator Jesse Bloch who was vacationing in California and was for suffrage. While Republican colleagues kept the special session from adjourning, the national Republican party and private donors arranged for Bloch to travel by train from California to Charleston to cast his vote and break the tie. While Bloch was on his way, more drama unfolded when former senator A.W. Montgomery, who had resigned and moved out of state prior to the session, tried to reclaim his seat in order to break the tie against ratifying the amendment. His attempt failed however due to his official resignation months before. Senator Bloch arrived in Charleston in the early morning of March 10 and later that day cast his vote in favor of ratification, making West Virginia the 34th state to ratify the 19th Amendment.

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