The right of citizens of the United States, who are eighteen years of age or older, to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of age.
Amendment 26 changed the legal age of voters from twenty-one to eighteen. In his 1954 State of the Union Address, President Dwight D. Eisenhower was the first President to publicly support lowering the legal age of voters to eighteen. It had previously been set at twenty-one years of age by Amendment 14. Because of the Vietnam War, in which young men of ineligible voting age were conscripted, the public pressured Congress to amend the constitutional age for voting:
"Old enough to fight, old enough to vote," was a common slogan used by proponents of lowering the voting age. The slogan traced its roots to World War II, when President Franklin D. Roosevelt lowered the military draft age to eighteen.1
The reason for the change in the voting age in 1971 was not so much to grant eighteen- to twenty-year-olds the privilege of voting, but rather to eliminate public opposition against eighteen- to twenty-year-olds being drafted.
Congress had two opportunities to get the age of manhood correct. In both instances (Amendments 14 and 26), they failed. Neither eighteen nor twenty-one is the Biblical age of manhood. Yahweh2 set the age of military service (and thus manhood) at twenty years:
Take ye the sum of all the congregation of the children of Israel, after their families, by the house of their fathers, with the number of their names, every male by their polls; from twenty years old and upward, all that are able to go forth to war.... (Numbers 1:2-3)3
In both instances, Congress ignored Yahweh's will. Why should they consult Him when nothing in the United States Constitution requires them to do so?
Numbers 14 describes anyone less than the age of twenty as a child:
How long shall I bear with this evil congregation, which murmur against me?... Say unto them, ... Your carcases shall fall in this wilderness ... according to your whole number, from twenty years old and upward, which have murmured against me.... But your little ones [everyone less than twenty years of age], which ye said should be a prey, them will I bring in, and they shall know the land which ye have despised. But as for you, your carcases, they shall fall in this wilderness. And your children shall wander in the wilderness forty years, and bear your whoredoms, until your carcases be wasted in the wilderness. (Numbers 14:27-33)
Solomon and Isaiah describe children ruling the nation as one of the curses for violating Yahweh's law:
Woe to thee, O land, when thy king is a child.... (Ecclesiastes 10:16)
For, behold, the Lord, YHWH4 of hosts, doth take away from Jerusalem and from Judah the ... mighty man, and the man of war, the judge, and the prophet, and the prudent, and the ancient, the captain of fifty, and the honourable man, and the counsellor, and the cunning artificer, and the eloquent orator. And I will give children to be their princes, and babes [mere lads their princes and capricious children, NASB] shall rule over them. And the people shall be oppressed ... the child shall behave himself proudly against the ancient.... As for my people, children are their oppressors, and women rule over them. O my people, they which lead thee cause thee to err, and destroy the way of thy paths. (Isaiah 3:1-5, 12)
Along with the constitutional right to vote comes the right to be elected to public office. According to Numbers 14, eighteen- and nineteen-year-olds are considered children. Consequently, the Twenty-Sixth Amendment's entitlement of children to rule over adults is a curse upon the nation. Even when eighteen- and nineteen-year-olds aren't elected to public office, their constitutional right to vote can prove to be a curse to the rest of us. Case in point: the majority of eighteen- and nineteen-year-olds who participated in the 2008 presidential election voted for Barack Obama.
Click to order the Bible Law vs. The United States Constitution CDs:
- The e-book (on CD) A Christian Perspective on the U.S. Constitution
- The audio CD The Bible vs. The U.S. Constitution (Pts. 1 & 2)
1. "Twenty-fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution," Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twenty-fifth_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution.
2. YHWH (most often pronounced Yahweh) is the English transliteration of the Tetragrammaton, the principal Hebrew name of the God of the Bible. For a more thorough explanation concerning the sacred names of God, "The Third Commandment" may be read online, or the book Thou shalt not take the name of YHWH thy God in vain may be ordered from Mission to Israel Ministries, PO Box 248, Scottsbluff, Nebraska 69363, for a suggested $4 donation.*
3. All Scripture is quoted from the King James Version, unless otherwise noted. Portions of Scripture have been omitted for brevity. If you have questions regarding any passage, please study the Biblical text to ensure it has been properly used.
4. Where the Tetragrammaton (YHWH) - the four Hebrew characters that represent the personal name of God - has been unlawfully rendered the LORD or GOD in English translations, I have taken the liberty to correct this error by inserting YHWH where appropriate. For a more thorough explanation concerning the use of the names of God, "The Third Commandment" may be read online, or the book Thou shalt not take the name of YHWH thy God in vain may be ordered from Mission to Israel Ministries, PO Box 248, Scottsbluff, Nebraska, 69363, for a suggested $4 donation.*
*We are admonished in Matthew 10:8 "freely ye have received, freely give." Although we have suggested a price for our books, we do not sell them. In keeping with 2 Corinthians 9:7, this ministry is supported by freewill offerings. If you cannot afford the suggested price, inform us of your situation, and we will be pleased to provide you with whatever you need for whatever you can send.