"moral right", but had voted against it because he believed his constituents opposed it. In the final minutes before the vote, he received a note from his mother, urging him to vote yes. Rumors immediately circulated that Burn and other lawmakers had been bribed, but newspaper reporters found no evidence of this. The same day ratification passed in the General Assembly, Speaker Walker filed a motion to reconsider. When it became clear he did not have enough votes to carry the motion, representatives opposing suffrage boarded a train, fleeing Nashville for Decatur, Alabama to block the House from taking action on the reconsideration motion by preventing a quorum. Thirty-seven legislators fled to Decatur, issuing a statement that ratifying the amendment would violate their oath to defend the state constitution. The ploy failed. Speaker Walker was unable to muster any additional votes in the allotted time. When the House reconvened to take the final procedural steps that would reaffirm ratification, Tennessee suffragists seized an opportunity to taunt the missing Anti delegates by sitting at their empty desks. When ratification was finally confirmed, a suffragist on the floor of the House rang a miniature Liberty Bell. On August 18, 1920, Tennessee narrowly approved the Nineteenth Amendment, with 50 of 99 members of the Tennessee House of Representatives voting yes. This provided the final ratification necessary to add the amendment to the Constitution, making the United States the twenty-seventh country in the world to give women the right to vote. Upon signing the ratification certificate, the Governor of Tennessee sent it by registered mail to the U.S. Secretary of State Bainbridge Colby, whose office received it at 4:00 a.m. on August 26, 1920. Once certified as correct, Colby signed the Proclamation of the Women's Suffrage Amendment to the U.S. Constitution in the presence of his secretary only. Ratification timeline Congress proposed the Nineteenth Amendment on June 4, 1919, and the following states ratified the amendment. Illinois: June 10, 1919 Wisconsin: June 10, 1919 Michigan: June 10, 1919 Kansas: June 16, 1919 Ohio: June 16, 1919 New York: June 16, 1919) Pennsylvania: June 24, 1919 Massachusetts: June 25, 1919 Texas: June 28, 1919 Iowa: July 2, 1919 Missouri: July 3, 1919 Arkansas: July 28, 1919 Montana: July 30, 1919; August 2, 1919 Nebraska: August 2, 1919 Minnesota: September 8, 1919 New Hampshire: September 10, 1919 Utah: September 30, 1919 California: November 1, 1919 Maine: