American history has been punctuated by rare but meaningful moments of democratic progress. During Reconstruction, three major constitutional amendments (the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth) and a series of far-reaching new laws opened up the political system (albeit only temporarily) to African Americans. Likewise, between 1913 and 1920, America witnessed the passage of three democratizing constitutional amendments: the Sixteenth, authorizing a direct income tax; the Seventeenth, establishing direct elections to the U.S. Senate; and the Nineteenth, constitutionalizing women’s suffrage.
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