In the early years of this republic, the right to vote was not a birthright but a narrow privilege. It was held by a select few—mostly landowning men— who stood at the center of civic life while others waited outside the circle. America was founded on the idea that liberty was a universal gift, yet its practice came slowly. Over the centuries, ordinary citizens—abolitionists, suffragists, civil rights leaders—pushed against the boundaries of that early exclusivity. They believed that the promise of the Constitution must belong to everyone.

The Constitution itself said little about who could vote. It left the matter to the states, and for decades that meant the electorate remained small, guarded, and exclusive. But the American instinct toward fairness, that restless sense of justice, woul

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