Initially, the framers of the U.S. Constitution and state voting laws restricted the role of young people in American politics. States uniformly set 21 as the voting age, although Connecticut debated lowering it to 18 in 1819. In general, young Americans were expected to be deferential to their elders, and John Adams famously cautioned that expanding suffrage would encourage "lads from twelve to twenty-one" to demand the right to vote. Yet as the suffrage expanded to non-property-holders in the early 1800s, young people came to play a larger role in politics. During the rise of Jacksonian Democracy, youths often organized Young Men’s clubs in support of the Democratic, National Republican, Whig, or Anti-Masonic parties. Presidential campaigns often organized torch-lit rallies of thousands of marchers, and analyses of these club rosters show that members were often in their late teens and early twenties. The demands of popular democracy – which often drew voter turnouts above 80% of eligible voters – led political machines to rely on youths as cheap, enthusiastic campaigners for political machines. In 1848, Abraham Lincoln suggested that the Whig Party in Springfield, Illinois, make use of "the shrewd, wild boys about town, whether just of age or a little under age." In the mid-to-late 1800s, young men enthusiastically cast their "virgin vote" when turning 21. Voting was often seen as a rite of passage and public declaration of manhood, adulthood, and citizenship. Young African-Americans participated in voting and campaigning where they could vote, and young women, though prevented from voting themselves, followed politics closely, read partisan newspapers, and argued politics with the young men in their lives. Around the turn of the 20th century, political reformers reduced party’s reliance on young activists in an effort to clean up politics. Youth turnout fell shortly thereafter, especially among first time "virgin voters," whose turnout declined 53% between 1888 and 1924. As turnout fell in the early 20th century, young people played less role in campaigning. Though individual campaigns, like those of Theodore Roosevelt in 1904, Franklin Delano Roosevelt in 1932, and John F. Kennedy in 1960, specifically appealed to youth, political parties generally showed less systematic interest in the youth vote. Sustained interest in lowering the voting age began during World War II when Congress passed legislation allowing young men to be drafted at the age of eighteen. While a few individual states began to allow 18-year-old voting before the Civil Rights Extension Act of 1970 and
26th Amendment (1971) lowered the voting age to eighteen, efforts to lower the voting age generally garnered little support. By the late 1960s and early 1970s, young people had shown themselves to be vital political actors and were demanding more of a role in American public life. The qualities associated with youth – young people's idealism, lack of "vested interests," and openness to new ideas – came to be seen as positive qualities for a political system that seemed to be in crisis. Rising high school graduation rates and young people's increasing access to political information also spurred re-evaluations of 18-year-olds' fitness for voting rights. In addition, Civil Rights organizations, the
National Education Association, and youth-centered groups formed coalitions that coordinated lobbying and grassroots efforts aimed at lowering the voting age on both the state and national level. ==Variables affecting the youth vote in the United States==