ABSTRACT
Exactly one month after the Supreme Court arguments on the White House tapes, on August 8, 1974, President Nixon resigned rather than face an impeachment trial in the US Senate. By then, his vice president, Spiro Agnew, had also resigned under tax and corruption charges unrelated to the Watergate break-in, and House Speaker Gerald Ford had become the vice president to succeed to the presidency. The Vietnam War ended during the Ford administration, and the tensions of the 1960s subsided. But some trends of the 1960s continued. Proponents' primary argument in support of a constitutional amendment was that it would provide the most effective means of combating sex-based classifications in areas such as employment, education, welfare, credit, pensions, domestic relations, and military service. Equality in the workplace was one thing; equality in the trenches was quite another. To proponents, the amendment represented a significant affirmation of equality as well as a means for attaining it.
