Old Enough to Fight, Old Enough to Vote: The 26th Amendment

We have needs and problems

and goals to share;

It’s a test of our purpose,

and how much we care.

The time is now!

Citizens, awake!

Battalions for the ballot!

Our future is at stake!

-Jennings Randolph, “Father of the 26^th amendment”

After World War II America emerged as the world’s greatest power. Since the country was the symbol of freedom and the prime example of prosperity, Americans felt it was their duty to impose their values on people in other countries and secure a free world, although there were minorities here that were not “free”. Joseph Stalin, leader of the Soviet Union, held these very same aspirations. Unfortunately, America and the Soviet Union had conflicting values. Although President Franklin Delano Roosevelt hoped to maintain on friendly terms with the Soviet Union after World War II, the conflicting ideals of the world’s greatest powers were so prominent that their once harmonious alliance began to deteriorate (Foner 898). This led to the Cold War (roughly 1947–1991).

Pursing his aspirations, Stalin installed procommunist governments in Romania, Poland, and Bulgaria, “a step they claimed was no different from American domination of Latin America or Britain’s determination to maintain its own empire,” which I agree with 100% (Foner 898).

But America wanting to preserve freedom and democracy believed that the Soviet Union was restricting free elections in Poland after Stalin had promised to allow free elections (after, Hitler you’d think the Allies would have been more cautious). George Kennan, American diplomat, told the Truman administration that Soviets would continue to pursue expansion and only the United States, with all its glory, had the power to stop them. Upon receiving this information the U.S. vowed “‘to support free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation…by outside pressures’” and stop the expansion of communism; the policy became known as containment.

When Japan surrenders after WWII, Vietnamese communist Ho Chi Minh declares his country’s independence from France, proclaiming it the independent Democratic Republic of Vietnam (very ironic since he was communist). In order to combat this, the French claimed South Vietnam and started negotiations with the communists in the north. Since they failed to compromise, the French invaded Haiphong, a northern Vietnamese city starting the Indochina War. China supported the communists in the north, while America supported the French and anticommunist forces in the south.

The communist were victorious. The following peace negotiations divided Vietnam along the 17^th parallel. Now, you would think that Americans would have taken this as a warning that maybe they could not defeat the northern Vietnamese, considering that they would turn to China once again for help. But of course, since Presidents Kennedy and Johnson “fear[ed] that the public would not forgive them for ‘losing’ Vietnam… foreign policy advisers saw it as a test of whether the United States could, through “counterinsurgency” – intervention – to counter internal uprisings in noncommunist countries – halt the spread of Third World revolutions” (Foner 996). With the domino theory in place, the government believed that if Vietnam fell to Communism, the rest of the Asia would. This ideal prompted President Dwight Eisenhower pledge to help the southern Vietnamese resist communism, a pledge that later presidents would uphold. Kennedy sent almost 9,000 troops by 1961 after the National Liberation Front, an anti-Diem organization in southern Vietnam, formed because he feared the group was secretly working for the northern Vietnamese.

The ship was "attack" in the Gulf of Tonkin

Because of southern Vietnam’s political instability due to the Diem being assassinated, President Lyndon B. Johnson, under the advisory of Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, intensified the number of troops and economic support given the Southern Vietnamese. After DRV torpedo boats attacked U.S. destroyers in the Gulf of Tonkin, President Johnson ordered the attack on targets in northern Vietnam. Keeping up with the trend of not officially declaring war since World War II, Congress gave President Johnson a blank check, or the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, which gave him permission to “take all necessary measures to repel armed attack in Vietnam” (Foner 996). Stupidly, they gave him the OK to order soldiers to kill people with no goals or strategies in mind. Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara who once was an extreme advocate of the Vietnam War began to have his doubts about America’s involvement and whether they could win, but of course President Johnson vowed to no be “the president who saw Southeast Asia go the way China went” (Foner 996).  By the end of Johnson’s presidency in 1968, more than 500,000 were present in Vietnam. The Pentagon Papers, headed by former Secretary of Defense McNamara (he was “fired” from his position after publicly criticizing the war and President Johnson), would prove that the American government lied to its people about American involvement in the Vietnam War and that the incident in the Gulf of Tonkin never happened.

After President Franklin Roosevelt lowered the draft age to eighteen during World War II, young people started questioning why they were required to go fight in armed conflicts, but were denied the right to vote once they came back home. Jennings Randolph, House of Representative Member of West Virginia, proposed lowering the voting eleven times to Congress since the beginning of World War II. With the average age of soldiers being nineteen and the age groups that suffered the highest causality rates were younger than twenty-one during the Vietnam War, this dream would soon be fulfilled. “Old enough to fight, old enough to vote” soon became the slogan used to lower the voting age. Roosevelt’s successor, President Eisenhower, endorsed lowering because he believed "For years our citizens between the ages of 18 and 21 have, in time of peril, been summoned to fight for America. They should participate in the political process that produces this fateful summons." After countless protests and the Supreme Court’s decision of Oregon v. Mitchell, which could only allow the federal voting age to be lowered in federal elections, the 26^th amendment was passed and ratified in 1971 with the hopes that states would too pass laws to lower the voting ages in local elections.

Randolph believed that "[young people] possess a great social conscience, are perplexed by the injustices in the world and are anxious to rectify those ills.” Unfortunately, this age group would inevitably prove him wrong. The year after the amendment was ratified only 55.4% of the youth voted. Later years would soon see a decline in youth voting. In 1973, the voting rate for age groups 18-24 was a little higher than 40% and the percentage hit an all-time low in 2000, with the presidential election with Bush and Gore (Ginsberg, Lowi, Tolbert, Weir 2013). Apparently, Gore could have won the election if more of the youth population voted (Ginsberg, Lowi, Tolbert, Weir 2013). However, the highest percentage of votes in decades was in 2008 with 51% (ages 18-29). It is believed to be contributed to the fact that usually candidates target older age groups, but Obama targeted younger voters by communicating with them through social networking and videos on YouTube (Ginsberg, Lowi, Tolbert, Weir 2013). Other measures to target younger audiences are the Rock to Vote and Rap to Vote, concerts devoted to support the efforts of getting young people to vote. As a result, 66% of young voters chose Barack Obama in 2008 and 60% in 2012 (Ginsberg, Lowi, Tolbert, Weir 2013). Despite these successful turnouts, 21% of voters the ages of 18-24 in 2010 reported they did not vote be of a too busy, conflicting schedule (Brudney, Weber 84). If they are too busy to vote, they may be too busy to read about what and/or they are voting for. James Madison, father of the Constitution, feared public opinion for this very reason and established the Electoral College. To combat ignorance, public high schools require all students to take some form of American government class.  

Works Cited

"The 26th Amendment." History. A&E Television Networks, n.d. Web. 28 Jan. 2014.
 "American Vietnam War Casualty Statistics." Vietnam War Casualty Statistics by Race, Sex, Religion,

Etc... MilitaryFactory.com, n.d. Web. 29 Jan. 2014.

 Brudney, Kent M., and Mark E. Weber. Critical Thinking and American Government: Exercises and 

Applications. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education, 2012. Print.

Foner, Eric. Give Me Liberty!: An American History. New York: W.W. Norton &, 2014. Print.

Ginsberg, Benjamin. We the People: An Introduction to American Politics. New York: W.W. Norton &, 2013. Print.
"Pentagon Papers." History. A&E Television Networks, n.d. Web. 28 Jan. 2014.
"Vietnam War." History. A&E Television Networks, n.d. Web. 28 Jan. 2014.

"Vietnam War Statistics." Vietnam War Statistics. Mobile Riverine Force Assosication, n.d. Web. 29 Jan. 2014.