Sunday, July 1, 2012

Today in History: The 26th Amendment

On June 22, 1970, President Richard Nixon signed an extension of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 that required the voting age to be 18 in all federal, state, and local elections... It was adopted on July 1, 1971.

On July 5, 1971, during the amendment's signing ceremony in the East Room, President Richard Nixon talked about his confidence in the youth of America.
As I meet with this group today, I sense that we can have confidence that America’s new voters, America’s young generation, will provide what America needs as we approach our 200th birthday, not just strength and not just wealth but the “Spirit of ‘76’ a spirit of moral courage, a spirit of high idealism in which we believe in the American dream, but in which we realize that the American dream can never be fulfilled until every American has an equal chance to fulfill it in his own life.