Amendment 14 [Section 1]
All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside. No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
Originally the 14th amendment was a response to slavery. It made former slaves citizens of the United States and of the state in which they lived, and ensured that they would have the full protection of the law. However, as shown in the video, Susan B. Anthony recognized that the amendment, if read with a literal interpretation, also ensured citizenship for women born in the United States. Because the 15th amendment ensured citizens the right to vote, she believed that women should also have the right to vote.
The amendment was proposed on June 13, 1866, in the year following the end of the Civil War, and ratified July 9, 1868. Slavery itself had been forbidden by passage of the 13th Amendment in 1865, but the 14th amendment clarified issues of citizenship and due process (section 1), voting rights and representation (section 2), rights of office for former leaders of the Confederate rebellion (section 3), and obligation for payment of debts from the rebellion or from the loss of slaves as property (section 4).
Amendment 15
The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.
This amendment did not specifically include gender in the list of factors for which the right to vote could not be denied. Considering the politics of the time, this was probably done on purpose. However, gender was effectively added to the list by the 19th Amendment, ratified some 50 years later.
The amendment was proposed on February 26, 1869 and ratified February 3, 1870. Although states were still free to set specifications for voting, this amendment clarified that a person could not be denied the vote on the basis of race.
Amendment 19
The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex.
Similar amendments had been submitted to congress for some 40 years without success. But by 1920, the political momentum for women's suffrage had shifted. This amendment was proposed June 4, 1919, and ratified on August 18, 1920.
Compare the wording of the 19th and 15th Amendments. The 19th adds only a single three-letter word left from an original list of why a citizen cannot be denied the right to vote. The life and work of Susan B. Anthony and so many others were given for a single word that has made a great deal of difference.