How did the House vote on the final passage of the 16th Amendment and what were the yeas and nays?
Executive summary
The House approved the resolution proposing the Sixteenth Amendment by a recorded "yea" and "nay" vote — 318 yeas to 14 nays, with one Member voting "present" and 55 not voting — and that measure later completed congressional action leading to ratification in 1913 [1] [2]. Contemporary House practice treats the final passage of constitutional amendments and major measures as yea-and-nay recorded votes, a practice reflected in historical roll calls and modern electronic voting procedures [3] [4].
1. How the House recorded the vote: the numbers and labels
On the House floor the measure proposing the Sixteenth Amendment was taken as a recorded vote described in historical accounts as 318 yeas, 14 nays, one “present,” and 55 not voting — the count usually reported for the House action in 1909 [1]. That numeric breakdown is the primary way historians and official House materials report the final House tally: the affirmative column listed as “yeas,” the opposition as “nays,” and the minority of Members who abstained recorded either as “present” or simply as not voting [1].
2. What “yeas and nays” means and why it matters
The Constitution and House rules require that many decisive actions be decided by the “yeas and nays,” a specific, recorded form of voting that generates an explicit roll call tally of who supports and who opposes the question — language and practice underscored in procedural guides and historical vote prints [3] [5]. Modern House practice preserves that clarity: final passage votes and other consequential actions are recorded as Yea/Nay votes and, today, are typically captured by the electronic voting system that logs each Member’s response [4].
3. Timing and reporting: a small ambiguity in dates
Primary references place the House’s decisive action in the summer of 1909, but there is variation in the day cited by different official and secondary sources; the House History account describes a brisk debate and passage on July 12, 1909, while archival summaries and other historical narratives often cite early July 1909 as the congressional passage before sending the resolution to the states [1] [2]. The essential fact supported across sources is the numeric roll-call result (318–14, plus present and not voting) rather than a single uncontested daily timestamp [1] [2].
4. Senate context and the path to ratification
The amendment cleared the Senate overwhelmingly — frequently reported as 77–0 in the summer of 1909 — before the states undertook ratification; Congress’s approval initiated the interstate ratification process that culminated with the amendment’s certification on February 3, 1913 [6] [2]. The House and Senate tallies together explain how the amendment moved from a congressional resolution into the constitutional amendment process despite being controversial in some quarters.
5. Sources, agendas, and what the record does and doesn’t show
Official House History (House History, Art & Archives) and the National Archives provide the central numerical record of the House vote and the ratification date respectively, while pedagogical and secondary accounts reproduce the 318–14 figure and the unanimous Senate tally, reflecting broad contemporary support in Congress for empowering an unapportioned income tax [1] [6] [2]. Procedural sources from the House and the Government Publishing Office explain the formal meaning of “yeas and nays” and how such votes have been recorded historically and by modern electronic systems [5] [4]. Where sources diverge — notably the precise calendar day reported for the House action — the available documentation supports the vote totals but leaves room for variation in how individual retellings record the date [1] [2].