The Eugenic Marriage Amendments: The Twentieth-Century Campaign to Outlaw Interracial Marriage through Article V

In the United States, marriage law has always been considered state law. However, this does not mean that Americans have not attempted to create a federal system of marriage and divorce. From 1871-1929, U.S. Congressmen proposed 122 amendments to the federal Constitution aimed at regulating the institutions of marriage and divorce. Focusing on three failed marriage amendment proposals in the 1920s, this thesis explores how overlapping concerns regarding race, divorce, and federalism united "progressive" eugenicists, social conservatives, and anti-miscegenationists together to campaign for a federal marriage amendment.