Social Changes
Congress passed a number of constitutional amendments during the Progressive Era. The sixteenth amendment provided for an income tax. After the amendment was approved, its legality was questioned in thirteen states. If the law were declared illegal, there would no longer be an income tax. The seventeenth amendment provided for the direct election of the US Senators. The delegates the wrote the United States Constitution provided the House of Representatives would be elected directly by the people, but the Senate would be elected by members of the various state legislatures. The amendment became a law on April 8, 1913. The eighteenth amendment prohibited the manufacture, sale, and consumption of alcoholic beverages. The women who fought to get the right to vote were called suffragettes. In June, 1918, several months after the end of World War I, the nineteenth amendment was approved in the United States Congress.