In less than a month, on April 4th,
New York's ninth Constitutional Con-
vention in 190 years will convene to
consider the revision and modernization
of our State's fundamental charter of
government. One of the crucial issues
it will face is whether Article II, Section
I of the Constitution, which fixes the
minimum voting age for New Yorkers
at twenty-one should be amended to
reduce the age requirement to eighteen.
The question is not new — but it is
current. Senator Mansfield recently in-
troduced a Constitutional amendment
to reduce the voting age at the national
level to eighteen. The resolution is co-
sponsored by Senator Dirksen, myself,
and thirty-three other Senators. I have
long supported such an amendment at
the federal level. I intend to actively
support and urge its adoption on the
State level at the forthcoming State
Convention. It has been proposed, de-
bated, and, unfortunately, rejected for
about as long as I can remember. With
each year a greater number of citizens
enter the age group eighteen through
twenty. They are unable to vote — but
paradoxically, each year a greater pro-
portion of these same citizens are quali-
fied by education and exposure to polit-
ical affairs to exercise the privilege of
voting intelligently. And each year, I
would add, these citizens are more di-
rectly involved and affected by govern-
ment policies enacted by legislators
whom they have no say in selecting.
Vietnam, civil rights, selective service,
and educational standards are areas that
come immediately to mind.
1 Remarks of Senator Jacob K. Javits (R-
N.Y.) at Hunter College, New York City,
March 6, 1967.
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The impact of student statements and
orderly student demonstrations has been
considerable. But still more important,
it has been generally responsible. It is
an historical fact that the civil rights
movement started with student demon-
strations. It was the freedom rides of
1960, the sit-ins of 1961 and the marches
and voter registration drives of the past
five years — all manned by students —
which focused national attention on the
plight of the Southern Negro. Washing-
ton and the Nation have been informed,
affected, and influenced by the respon-
sible leadership of youth, but responsi-
bility is a two-way street, and when
those in the eighteen through twenty-
one age group have shown — as they
have — that they are sufficiently respon-
sible to exercise the highest privilege of
citizenship with intelligence it becomes
the government's duty to see that the
privilege is not denied them.
When our first State Constitution was
adopted in 1777, males of "full age"
were given the right to vote. At the
Conventions of 1867 and 1894, proposals
were made to reduce the voting age to
eighteen They were defeated. The issue,
however, was not considered by the
Conventions of 1915 or 1938 and it is
now time to reconsider the meaning of
"full age" in terms of 1967.
A few statistics will put the scope and
nature of the issue in its proper per-
spective. There are approximately
900,000 New Yorkers between the ages
of eighteen and twenty-one. Nationally,
there are ten million people in the same
age group. Approximately seventy
million votes were cast in the 1964
Presidential election — so we are now
talking about a group which potentially
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