page_title: Twenty-sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution
section_title: Support
hierarchical_section_title: Twenty-sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution / Background / Support
caption_attribution_description: English: Da Nang, Vietnam - A young Marine private waits on the beach during the Marine landing. - August 3, 1965.
context_page_description: The Twenty-sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution lowered the minimum voting age in the United States from 21 to 18.
  The United States Congress approved the amendment on March 23, 1971, and sent it to the states to be ratified. Within three months and eight days, the states had ratified the amendment, and it became part of the Constitution. This was the quickest amendment to be ratified in United States history.
context_section_description: During the 1960s, many Americans pushed both Congress and the state legislatures to lower the minimum voting age from 21 to 18.  This was mostly because of to the Vietnam War.  As the war went on, more and more people started to protest the war and become active.  During that war, many young men were drafted and sent to fight in the war before they were old enough to vote.  This meant they had no way to influence the people sending them off to risk their lives.  Protesters started to use the slogan "Old enough to fight, old enough to vote" again.
  Supporters also argued that the law treated eighteen-year-olds as adults in many other ways.  For example, they had to pay income taxes.  Supporters argued that this was "taxation without representation" – meaning that 18- to 20-year-olds had to pay taxes, but had no say in what those taxes were or what they were spent on, because they could not vote.
  In 1967, United States Representative William St. Onge pointed out: ""To tax our 18-, 19-, and 20-year-olds without giving them the right to vote ignores the great rallying cry of our War of Independence that there [should] be 'no taxation without representation.'"
  Similarly, in 1970, in a committee that was debating a possible Constitutional amendment to lower the voting age, Representative Thomas Railsback said: ""Our laws tax these 18-year-olds but our voting laws do not permit them representation in enacting that tax law.  The Boston Tea Party was supposed to have been the spark that put that issue to rest in this country."
caption: Too young to vote, this Marine is fighting in Vietnam
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