Video: '26th Amendment & Voting Age - Decades TV Network'

(Thursday, July 1, 1971, morning EDT; during the Vietnam War) — The Twenty-sixth Amendment to the Constitution, prohibiting the states and the federal government from using age as a reason for denying the right to vote to citizens of the United States who are at least eighteen years old, was ratified today as North Carolina became the 38th state to approve it, providing the necessary three-quarters majority necessary to become law.

Video: 'The 26th Amendment Explained: The Constitution for Dummies Series'

The drive to lower the voting age from 21 to 18 grew across the country during the 1960s, driven in part by the military draft held during the Vietnam War. The draft conscripted young men between the ages of 18 and 21 into the armed forces, primarily the U.S. Army, to serve in or support military combat operations in Vietnam. A common slogan of proponents of lowering the voting age was “old enough to fight, old enough to vote.”