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133-582: After the Civil War, women's rights activists disagreed about whether to support ratification of the 15th Amendment , which provided voting rights regardless of race, but which did not explicitly enfranchise women. The resulting split in the women's movement marginalized all women, and African-American women nonetheless continued their suffrage activism. By the 1890s, the women's suffrage movement had become increasingly racist and exclusionary, and African-American women organized separately through local women's clubs and

266-506: A Declaration of Rights for Women at the official celebration, but they were refused. Despite the lack of permission, five women, headed by Anthony, walked onto the platform during the ceremony and handed their Declaration to Senator Thomas Ferry who was the acting Vice President of the United States, and the official in charge of the celebration. As they left, they handed out copies to the crowd. Stepping onto an unoccupied bandstand outside

399-519: A ballot in a Democratic party primary election on the basis of race. The Court found in his favor on the basis of the Fourteenth Amendment, which guarantees equal protection under the law, while not discussing his Fifteenth Amendment claim. After Texas amended its statute to allow the political party's state executive committee to set voting qualifications, Nixon sued again; in Nixon v. Condon (1932),

532-475: A better future." According to the Court, "Regardless of how to look at the record no one can fairly say that it shows anything approaching the 'pervasive', 'flagrant', 'widespread', and 'rampant' discrimination that faced Congress in 1965, and that clearly distinguished the covered jurisdictions from the rest of the nation." In dissent, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote, "Throwing out preclearance when it has worked and

665-834: A few months earlier to visit her daughter, whose husband was British. Over a period of nine months, they met with leaders of various European women's movements and began laying the foundation for an international women's organization. The NWSA agreed to host the founding congress of the organization that Stanton and Anthony were working toward. The first congress of the International Council of Women (ICW) met in Washington in 1888 with delegates from fifty-three women's organizations in nine countries. The delegates represented various organizations, including suffrage associations, professional groups, literary clubs, temperance unions, labor leagues and missionary societies. The AWSA participated in

798-629: A figure only five percent less than that for Southern whites. The Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of Sections 4 and   5 in South Carolina v. Katzenbach (1966). However, in Shelby County v. Holder (2013), the Supreme Court ruled that Section 4(b) of the Voting Rights Act, which established the coverage formula that determined which jurisdictions were subject to preclearance,

931-688: A group that organized whites-only pre-primary elections with the assistance of Democratic party officials. The Court also used the amendment to strike down a gerrymander in Gomillion v. Lightfoot (1960). The decision found that the redrawing of city limits by Tuskegee, Alabama officials to exclude the mostly black area around the Tuskegee Institute discriminated on the basis of race. The Court later relied on this decision in Rice v. Cayetano (2000), which struck down ancestry-based voting in elections for

1064-520: A harsher penalty, this signaled to the states that they still possessed the right to deny ballot access based on race. Northern states were generally as averse to granting voting rights to blacks as Southern states. In the year of its ratification, only eight Northern states allowed blacks to vote. In the South, blacks were able to vote in many areas, but only through the intervention of the occupying Union Army . Before Congress had granted suffrage to blacks in

1197-408: A legal advantage in building the organization. A married woman at that time had the legal status of feme covert , which, among other things, excluded her from signing contracts (she had to convince her husband to sign for her). As Anthony had no husband, she had the legal status of a feme sole , enabling her to sign contracts for convention halls and printed materials. In 1869, Virginia Minor ,

1330-580: A liability to the association due to Southern white women's attitudes toward black women getting the vote. Southern whites feared African Americans gaining more political advantage and thus power; African-American women voters would help to achieve this change. The African-American women's suffrage movement began with women such as Harriet Tubman and Sojourner Truth , and it progressed to women like Ida B. Wells , Mary Church Terrell , Ella Baker , Rosa Parks , Angela Davis , and many others. All of these women played very important roles, such as contributing to

1463-431: A literacy test, finding it to be discriminatory. The Court ruled in the related case Myers v. Anderson (1915), that the officials who enforced such a clause were liable for civil damages. The Court addressed the white primary system in a series of decisions later known as the "Texas primary cases". In Nixon v. Herndon (1927), Dr. Lawrence A. Nixon sued for damages under federal civil rights laws after being denied

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1596-593: A member of the NWSA, and her husband Francis developed the idea that achieving women's suffrage did not require a Sixteenth Amendment. Their approach, which became known as the New Departure, was based on the belief that women were already implicitly enfranchised by the U.S. Constitution. Their strategy relied heavily on the Fourteenth Amendment , which says, "No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge

1729-454: A modest publication that could be produced quickly, the history evolved into a six-volume work of more than 5700 pages written over a period of 41 years, preserving a rich history that otherwise might have been lost. The first three volumes, which cover the movement up to 1885, were produced primarily by Anthony and Stanton. Anthony handled the production details while Stanton wrote most of the text. Matilda Joslyn Gage , another leading member of

1862-412: A national office, its mailing address being simply that of one of the officers. Anthony and Stanton did not receive a salary from the organization, supporting themselves with the money they earned by lecturing. In Anthony's case, the money flowed the other way, with her lecture fees helping to fund the organization after she had paid The Revolution's debts. The fact that Anthony was unmarried gave her

1995-510: A petition drive, the largest in the nation's history, in support of an amendment to abolish slavery. Another was the Working Women's Association , which began as an organization of wage-earning women but evolved into one consisting almost entirely of journalists, doctors and other middle-class working women. Its members formed the core of the New York City segment of the NWSA, where the NWSA

2128-636: A prominent NWSA ally, and Reverend Henry Ward Beecher , the first president of the AWSA, seriously damaging the reputation of the entire women's movement. Woodhull did not play a significant role in the women's suffrage movement afterwards. In 1871 the NWSA officially adopted the New Departure strategy, encouraging women to attempt to vote and to file lawsuits if denied that right. Soon hundreds of women tried to vote in dozens of localities. In 1872, Susan B. Anthony convinced some election officials to allow her to vote in that year's presidential elections, for which she

2261-405: A series that "included racist and nativist comments." Stanton added that U.S. Senators "degrade" women "in their political status, below unwashed and unlettered ditch-diggers, boot-blacks, hostlers, butchers, and barbers." Stanton then objected to laws being made for women by "Patrick and Sambo and Hans and Yung Tung who do not know the difference between a Monarchy and a Republic, and who never read

2394-506: A study of African American women in the suffrage movement lists nine who participated in the AWSA during the 1870s and six who participated in the NWSA. Stanton, a NWSA leader, "moved to sever the women's rights movement from its earlier moorings in the antislavery tradition." She periodically "appealed to racial and ethnic prejudices, arguing that native-born white women deserved the vote more than non-whites and immigrants." Lee Boomer and New-York Historical Society educators noted that "while

2527-513: A weekly women's rights newspaper in New York City that became an important tool for supporting their wing of the movement. The dispute became increasingly bitter after the Fifteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was introduced, which would in effect enfranchise black men by prohibiting the denial of suffrage because of race. Lucy Stone supported the amendment even though she argued that suffrage for women would be more beneficial to

2660-455: A women's suffrage leader continued to rise afterwards. Both Stanton and Anthony eagerly supported her at first, although Anthony became increasingly wary of her. At the UWSA's 1872 convention, Woodhull attempted to commandeer the organization, urging its delegates to meet the next day in a different hall to form a new political party with herself as its candidate for president of the United States. In

2793-472: Is an exemption from discrimination in the exercise of the elective franchise on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude. This, under the express provisions of the second section of the amendment, Congress may enforce by "appropriate legislation". White supremacists , such as the Ku Klux Klan (KKK), used paramilitary violence to prevent blacks from voting. A number of blacks were killed at

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2926-436: Is continuing to work to stop discriminatory changes is like throwing away your umbrella in a rainstorm because you are not getting wet." While the preclearance provision itself was not struck down, it will continue to be inoperable unless Congress passes a new coverage formula. Informational notes Citations Bibliography National Woman Suffrage Association The National Woman Suffrage Association ( NWSA )

3059-426: Is not. If citizens of one race having certain qualifications are permitted by law to vote, those of another having the same qualifications must be. Previous to this amendment, there was no constitutional guaranty against this discrimination: now there is. It follows that the amendment has invested the citizens of the United States with a new constitutional right which is within the protecting power of Congress. That right

3192-517: Is often considered the precursor to the racial schism within the women's suffrage movement; the Seneca Falls Declaration put forth a political analysis of the condition of upper-class, married women, but did not address the struggles of working-class white women or black women. Well into the twentieth century, a pattern emerged of segregated political activism, as black and white women organized separately due to class and racial tensions within

3325-586: The American Civil War and the Reconstruction Era that followed, Congress repeatedly debated the rights of black former slaves freed by the 1863 Emancipation Proclamation and the 1865 Thirteenth Amendment , the latter of which had formally abolished slavery. Following the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment by Congress, however, Republicans grew concerned over the increase it would create in

3458-412: The American Civil War and the Reconstruction Era that followed, Congress repeatedly debated the rights of the millions of black freedmen . By 1869, amendments had been passed to abolish slavery and provide citizenship and equal protection under the laws, but the election of Ulysses S. Grant to the presidency in 1868 convinced a majority of Republicans that protecting the franchise of black male voters

3591-480: The American Equal Rights Association was formed with the belief that everyone regardless of race or sex should be given the right to vote. During this time period a division was forming among the women's movement. The 14th Amendment was being proposed and black males were on the cusp of receiving the right to vote. The NSWA held a convention to discuss how to go forward and the women were divided on

3724-580: The Colfax massacre of 1873 while attempting to defend their right to vote. The Enforcement Acts were passed by Congress in 1870–1871 to authorize federal prosecution of the KKK and others who violated the amendment. However, as Reconstruction neared its end and federal troops withdrew, prosecutions under the Enforcement Acts dropped significantly. In United States v. Cruikshank (1876), the Supreme Court ruled that

3857-549: The Declaration of Independence or Webster's spelling book." The AERA essentially collapsed after an acrimonious convention in 1869, and two rival women's suffrage organizations were created in its wake. The National Woman Suffrage Association (NWSA) was created on May 15, 1869, two days after what turned out to be the AERA's last convention, with Anthony and Stanton as its primary leaders. The American Woman Suffrage Association (AWSA)

3990-488: The Equal Rights Association like Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony had a primarily white agenda. After the Civil War it became clear that black and white women had different views of why the right to vote was essential. Unlike white suffragists, Black women sought the ballot for themselves and their men to empower black communities besieged by the reign of racial terror that erupted after Emancipation in

4123-452: The Fourteenth Amendment in Harper v. Virginia State Board of Elections (1966). Section 1. The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude. Section 2. The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation. In the final years of

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4256-499: The Ku Klux Klan (KKK) also suppressed black participation. Although the fifteenth amendment is “self-executing” the court early emphasized that the right granted to be free from racial discrimination should be kept free and pure by congressional enactment whenever necessary. In the twentieth century, the Court began to interpret the amendment more broadly, striking down grandfather clauses in Guinn v. United States (1915) and dismantling

4389-619: The Library of Congress , in the House of Representatives 144 Republicans voted to approve the 15th Amendment, with zero Democrats in favor, 39 no votes, and seven abstentions. In the Senate, 33 Republicans voted to approve, again with zero Democrats in favor. United States Supreme Court decisions in the late nineteenth century interpreted the amendment narrowly. From 1890 to 1910, the Democratic Party in

4522-625: The National Association of Colored Women . Women won the vote in dozens of states in the 1910s, and African-American women became a powerful voting block. The struggle for the vote did not end with the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment in 1920, which expanded voting rights substantially, but did not address the racial terrorism that prevented African Americans in southern states from voting, regardless of sex. Women such as Fannie Lou Hamer , Ella Baker , and Diane Nash continued

4655-546: The Office of Hawaiian Affairs ; the ruling held that the elections violated the Fifteenth Amendment by using "ancestry as a racial definition and for a racial purpose". After judicial enforcement of the Fifteenth Amendment ended grandfather clauses, white primaries, and other discriminatory tactics, Southern black voter registration gradually increased, rising from five percent in 1940 to twenty-eight percent in 1960. Although

4788-549: The Reconstruction era and Post-Reconstruction era: It's a remarkable accomplishment given that slavery was such a dominant institution before the Civil War. But the history of the 15th Amendment also shows rights can never be taken for granted: Things can be achieved and things can be taken away. African Americans called the amendment the nation's " second birth " and a "greater revolution than that of 1776 ," according to historian Eric Foner in his book The Second Founding: How

4921-495: The Southern United States adopted new state constitutions and enacted "Jim Crow" laws that raised barriers to voter registration. This resulted in most black voters and many Poor Whites being disenfranchised by poll taxes and literacy tests , among other barriers to voting, from which white male voters were exempted by grandfather clauses . A system of white primaries and violent intimidation by Democrats through

5054-451: The 1890s. Nevada was the first state to ratify the amendment, on March 1, 1869. The New England states and most Midwest states also ratified the amendment soon after its proposal. Southern states still controlled by Radical reconstruction governments, such as North Carolina, also swiftly ratified. Newly elected President Ulysses S. Grant strongly endorsed the amendment, calling it "a measure of grander importance than any other one act of

5187-518: The AERA, was listed first among those who signed the Declaration and was a vice president of the NWSA. According to Sally Gregory McMillen, a historian of the women's movement during this period, Lucretia Mott "avoided taking sides" in the split in the women's movement, providing support to both sides. In 1876, Anthony and Stanton began working on the History of Woman Suffrage . Originally envisioned as

5320-444: The AWSA allowed only delegates from recognized state organizations to vote at its meetings, although any member could attend and speak. The NWSA initially dealt with several women's issues, such as divorce reform and equal pay for women , while the AWSA focused almost exclusively on suffrage. The AWSA's membership included both women and men, and its first president was a man, Henry Ward Beecher . Stanton had originally proposed that

5453-464: The AWSA was losing strength. Anthony, by contrast, was by that point, "among the senior political figures in the United States", according to a prominent historian of women's history. Stanton, a popular speaker and a prolific writer of articles for newspapers and magazines, was also well known. The AWSA's annual meeting in November 1877 passed a resolution authorizing Stone to confer with Anthony about

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5586-479: The American continent but long denied the right to vote and hold office, have resorted to nontraditional politics." After her arrest in 1970, "[Angela] Davis became a political prisoner. National and international protests to free Angela were mobilized around the world. During the two years that she spent in prison, Davis read, wrote essays on injustices, and prepared as co-counsel for her own defense. Eventually, Davis

5719-681: The Civil War and Reconstruction Remade the Constitution . The first black person known to vote after the amendment's adoption was Thomas Mundy Peterson , who cast his ballot on March 31, 1870, in a Perth Amboy, New Jersey , referendum election adopting a revised city charter. African Americans—many of them newly freed slaves—put their newfound freedom to use, voting in scores of black candidates. During Reconstruction, 16 black men served in Congress and 2,000 black men served in elected local, state, and federal positions. In United States v. Reese (1876),

5852-626: The Court again found in his favor on the basis of the Fourteenth Amendment. Following Nixon , the Democratic Party's state convention instituted a rule that only whites could vote in its primary elections; the Court unanimously upheld this rule as constitutional in Grovey v. Townsend (1935), distinguishing the discrimination by a private organization from that of the state in the previous primary cases. However, in United States v. Classic (1941),

5985-601: The Court ruled that primary elections were an essential part of the electoral process, undermining the reasoning in Grovey . Based on Classic , the Court in Smith v. Allwright (1944), overruled Grovey , ruling that denying non-white voters a ballot in primary elections was a violation of the Fifteenth Amendment. In the last of the Texas primary cases, Terry v. Adams (1953), the Court ruled that black plaintiffs were entitled to damages from

6118-537: The Fifteenth Amendment to pass the Voting Rights Act of 1965 , achieving further racial equality in voting. Sections 4 and   5 of the Voting Rights Act required states and local governments with histories of racial discrimination in voting to submit all changes to their voting laws or practices to the federal government for approval before they could take effect, a process called "preclearance". By 1976, sixty-three percent of Southern blacks were registered to vote,

6251-468: The Fifteenth Amendment was never interpreted to prohibit poll taxes, in 1962 the Twenty-fourth Amendment was adopted banning poll taxes in federal elections, and in 1966 the Supreme Court ruled in Harper v. Virginia State Board of Elections (1966) that state poll taxes violate the Fourteenth Amendment's Equal Protection Clause . Congress used its authority pursuant to Section   2 of

6384-409: The Fifteenth Amendment. Initially, both houses passed a version of the amendment that included language referring to officeholding but ultimately the language was omitted. During this time, women continued to advocate for their own rights, holding conventions and passing resolutions demanding the right to vote and hold office. Some preliminary versions of the amendment even included women. However,

6517-434: The NWSA did not prohibit Black women from joining at the national level, local [NWSA] organizations could reject their participation." Many suffragists were appalled by the split and insisted on reunification. Theodore Tilton , a newspaper editor and women's rights advocate, initiated a petition drive calling for an end to the split. In April 1870, he convened a meeting of members of both organizations in an attempt to merge

6650-409: The NWSA under a new name. In May 1870, Anthony was forced to sell The Revolution because of mounting debts, thereby losing the NWSA's primary media voice. The NWSA afterwards depended on smaller periodicals, such as The National Citizen and Ballot Box , edited by Matilda Joslyn Gage , and The Woman's Tribune , edited by Clara Bewick Colby , to represent its viewpoint. The NWSA benefited from

6783-402: The NWSA's membership be limited to women, but her proposal was not accepted. In practice, however, the overwhelming majority of the NWSA members and officers were women. The NWSA held its conventions in Washington in accordance with its strategy of working primarily at the federal level, while the AWSA, working mainly at the state level, met in various cities across the country. The author of

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6916-490: The NWSA, opposed it, insisting that voting rights be extended to all women and all African Americans at the same time. The NWSA worked primarily at the federal level in its campaign for women's right to vote. In the early 1870s, it encouraged women to attempt to vote and to file lawsuits if prevented, arguing that the constitution implicitly enfranchised women through its guarantees of equal protection for all citizens. Many women attempted to vote, notably Susan B. Anthony, who

7049-480: The NWSA, wrote three chapters of the first volume but was forced to abandon the project afterwards because of the illness of her husband. After Stanton's death, Anthony published Volume 4 with the help of Ida Husted Harper . After Anthony's death, Harper completed the last two volumes, bringing history up to 1920. Stanton and Anthony had encouraged their rival Lucy Stone to assist with the work, or at least to send material that could be used by someone else to write

7182-473: The States, or the United States, however, from giving preference, in this particular, to one citizen of the United States over another on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude. Before its adoption, this could be done. It was as much within the power of a State to exclude citizens of the United States from voting on account of race, &c., as it was on account of age, property, or education. Now it

7315-633: The United States Constitution The Fifteenth Amendment ( Amendment XV ) to the United States Constitution prohibits the federal government and each state from denying or abridging a citizen's right to vote "on account of race , color , or previous condition of servitude." It was ratified on February 3, 1870, as the third and last of the Reconstruction Amendments . In the final years of

7448-734: The Woman's National Liberal Union, but it did not attract a significant following, and plans for merger proceeded. The NWSA and the AWSA met in a joint convention in Washington and formed the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA) on February 18, 1890. At Anthony's insistence, Stanton agreed to accept its presidency. This was largely a symbolic move; the day after she was elected president, Stanton sailed to her daughter's home in England, where she stayed for eighteen months, leaving Anthony effectively in charge. Stone

7581-423: The amendment did not prohibit literacy tests and poll taxes. Following congressional approval, the proposed amendment was then sent by Secretary of State William Henry Seward to the states for ratification or rejection. Though many of the original proposals for the amendment had been moderated by negotiations in committee, the final draft nonetheless faced significant hurdles in being ratified by three-fourths of

7714-404: The amendment's final text, which banned voter restriction only on the basis of "race, color, or previous condition of servitude." To attract the broadest possible base of support, the amendment made no mention of poll taxes or other measures to block voting, and did not guarantee the right of blacks to hold office. Preliminary drafts did include officeholding language, but scholars disagree as to

7847-572: The amendment's passage "confers upon the African race the care of its own destiny. It places their fortunes in their own hands." Congressman John R. Lynch later wrote that ratification of those two amendments made Reconstruction a success. In the year of the 150th anniversary of the Fifteenth Amendment Columbia University history professor and historian Eric Foner said about the Fifteenth Amendment as well as its history during

7980-658: The amendment, with 143 Republicans and one   Conservative Republican voting "Yea" and 39 Democrats, three   Republicans, one   Independent Republican and one   Conservative voting "No"; 26 Republicans, eight   Democrats, and one   Independent Republican did not vote. The final vote in the Senate was 39 to 13, with 14 not voting. The Senate passed the amendment, with 39 Republicans voting "Yea" and eight   Democrats and five Republicans   voting "Nay"; 13 Republicans and one   Democrat did not vote. Some Radical Republicans, such as Massachusetts Senator Charles Sumner , abstained from voting because

8113-418: The betterment of black women, as well as many other smaller groups who are not named. The NAWSA's movement marginalized many African-American women and through this effort was developed the idea of the "educated suffragist". This was the notion that being educated was an important prerequisite for being allowed the right to vote. Since many African-American women were uneducated, this notion meant exclusion from

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8246-455: The bill, President Johnson vetoed it on March 27, 1866. In his veto message , he objected to the measure because it conferred citizenship on the freedmen at a time when 11 out of 36 states were unrepresented in the Congress, and that it allegedly discriminated in favor of African Americans and against whites. Three weeks later, Johnson's veto was overridden and the measure became law. Despite this victory, even some Republicans who had supported

8379-542: The chaotic situation that followed, Anthony shouted that the UWSA would meet the next day as usual and abruptly adjourned the session. The UWSA did meet the next day as planned, although with fewer participants because most of them had gone to the Woodhull event instead. The UWSA voted to transform itself at this meeting into a reconstituted NWSA with Anthony as president. Later that year, Woodhull published details of an affair between Elizabeth Tilton , wife of Theodore Tilton ,

8512-648: The civil war, many African-American women struggled to keep their interests at the forefront of the political sphere, as many reformers tended to assume in their rhetoric assuming "black to be male and women to be white". In 1890, two rival organizations, the National Woman Suffrage Association and the American Woman Suffrage Association , merged to form the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA). As NAWSA began gaining support for its cause, its members realized that

8645-403: The civil, but moral codes by which you shall be governed, awake to the dangers of your present position, and demand, too, that women too shall be represented in government!" These beliefs and contentions corresponded with her published comments from inaugural issues of The Revolution . In 1868, for instance, she argued that "there is only one safe, sure way to build a government, and that is on

8778-528: The congress. The ICW convention brought increased publicity and respectability to the women's movement, especially when President Grover Cleveland honored the delegates by inviting them to a reception at the White House . Still active, ICW is associated with the United Nations. Lucy Stone initiated the reunification of the rival suffrage organizations. She was seventy years old and in declining health, and

8911-522: The congressional representation of the Democratic -dominated Southern states. Because the full population of freed slaves would be now counted rather than the three-fifths mandated by the previous Three-Fifths Compromise , the Southern states would dramatically increase their power in the population-based House of Representatives . Republicans hoped to offset this advantage by attracting and protecting votes of

9044-463: The country than suffrage for black men. Stanton and Anthony opposed it, insisting that all women and all African Americans should be enfranchised at the same time. Stanton argued that by enfranchising almost all men while excluding all women, the amendment would give constitutional authority to the belief that men were superior to women, creating an "aristocracy of sex". During the debate, Stanton wrote articles for The Revolution with language that

9177-519: The denial of suffrage because of sex rather than race. On July 4, 1876, The United States celebrated its 100th anniversary with a ceremony in Philadelphia at Independence Hall , where the Declaration of Independence was approved on July 4, 1776. In preparation for the event, the NWSA established headquarters nearby and began drawing up "articles of impeachment" against the country's male "Political Sovereigns". NWSA officers asked permission to present

9310-464: The early female abolitionists. The Abolitionist cause provided women who were previously bound to their roles as wives and mothers the opportunity to publicly challenge sexism and learn how to politically engage as activists, though the African-American women's suffrage movement was a different vein of women's suffrage, and one could even argue a different movement altogether. Abolitionists who headed

9443-410: The equal rights of all citizens, especially the right of suffrage. Its members consisted mainly of activists in the women's rights and abolitionist movements, and its leadership included such prominent activists as Lucretia Mott , Lucy Stone and Frederick Douglass . Over time, the AERA members whose primary interest was women's suffrage began to divide into two wings. One wing, whose leading figure

9576-503: The equality of all its citizens, male and female, black and white...Just so if woman finds it hard to bear the oppressive laws of a few Saxon Fathers, of the best orders of manhood, what may she not be called to endure when all the lower orders, natives and foreigners, Dutch, Irish, Chinese and African, legislate for her and her daughters?" Ellen DuBois referred to this particularly litany of "lower orders" as "betraying her underlying elitism", whereas Sue Davis renounced her question as one in

9709-490: The exclusion of African-American women would gain greater support, resulting in the adoption of a more narrow view of women's suffrage than had been previously asserted. NAWSA focused on enfranchisement solely for white women. African-American women began experiencing the "Anti-Black" women's suffrage movement. The National Woman Suffrage Association considered the Northeastern Federation of Colored Women's Clubs to be

9842-532: The extensive lecture tours that Stanton and Anthony undertook, which brought new recruits into the organization and strengthened it at the local, state and national levels. Their journeys during that period covered a distance that was unmatched by any other reformer or politician. From 1869 to 1879, Stanton traveled eight months of the year on the lecture circuit, usually delivering one lecture per day, two on Sundays. In one year alone, Anthony traveled 13,000 miles and gave at least 170 lectures. The NWSA did not have

9975-787: The federal government did not have the authority to prosecute the perpetrators of the Colfax massacre because they were not state actors . Congress further weakened the acts in 1894 by removing a provision against conspiracy. In 1877, Republican Rutherford B. Hayes was elected president after a highly contested election , receiving support from three Southern states in exchange for a pledge to allow white Democratic governments to rule without federal interference. As president, he refused to enforce federal civil rights protections, allowing states to begin to implement racially discriminatory Jim Crow laws . A Federal Elections Bill (the Lodge Bill of 1890)

10108-558: The fight for voting rights for all, culminating in the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 . The origins of the women's suffrage movement are tied to the Abolitionist movement. Upper-class white women in particular first articulated their own oppression in marriage and the private sphere using the metaphor of slavery, and they first developed a political consciousness by mobilizing in support of abolitionism. Lucretia Mott , Elizabeth Cady Stanton , and Maria Weston Chapman were among

10241-510: The final version omitted references to sex, further splintering the women's suffrage movement. After an acrimonious debate, the American Equal Rights Association , the nation's leading suffragist group, split into two rival organizations: the National Woman Suffrage Association of Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton , who opposed the amendment, and the American Woman Suffrage Association of Lucy Stone and Henry Browne Blackwell , who supported it. The two groups remained divided until

10374-416: The first U.S. Supreme Court decision interpreting the Fifteenth Amendment, the Court interpreted the amendment narrowly, upholding ostensibly race-neutral limitations on suffrage, including poll taxes , literacy tests , and a grandfather clause that exempted citizens from other voting requirements if their grandfathers had been registered voters. The Court also stated that the amendment does not confer

10507-459: The form of lynch mobs and terrorist attacks by the Ku Klux Klan. Some Democrats even advocated a repeal of the amendment, such as William Bourke Cockran of New York . In the 20th century, the Court began to read the Fifteenth Amendment more broadly. In Guinn v. United States (1915), a unanimous Court struck down an Oklahoma grandfather clause that effectively exempted white voters from

10640-538: The franchise to foreign-born citizens, as did Representatives from the West, where ethnic Chinese people were banned from voting. Both Southern and Northern Republicans also wanted to continue to deny the vote temporarily to Southerners disenfranchised for support of the Confederacy , and they were concerned that a sweeping endorsement of suffrage would enfranchise this group. A House and Senate conference committee proposed

10773-407: The franchise, black women sought the betterment of their communities overall, rather than their individual betterment exclusively as women. In Women, Race and Class , Angela Davis explains that "black women were equal to their men in the oppression they suffered ... and they resisted slavery with a passion equal to their men's", which highlights the source of their more holistic activism. Following

10906-534: The future National Woman Suffrage Association (NWSA). For the next several years, they worked together for the abolition of slavery and for women's rights. In 1866, Anthony and Stanton organized the Eleventh National Women's Rights Convention , the first since the Civil War began. The convention voted to transform itself into the American Equal Rights Association (AERA), whose purpose was to campaign for

11039-482: The goals of the Civil Rights Act began to doubt that Congress possessed the constitutional power to turn those goals into laws. The experience encouraged both radical and moderate Republicans to seek Constitutional guarantees for black rights, rather than relying on temporary political majorities. On June 18, 1866, Congress adopted the Fourteenth Amendment , which guaranteed citizenship and equal protection under

11172-432: The growing progress and effort to end African-American women's disenfranchisement. These women were discriminated against, abused, and raped by white southerners and northerners, yet they remained strong and persistent, and that strength has been passed down from generation to generation. It is still carried on in African-American families today. "African American women, have been political activists for their entire history on

11305-879: The hall, Anthony read the Declaration to a large crowd and invited everyone to a NWSA convention at the nearby Unitarian church to hear Stanton, Lucretia Mott and other speakers. The Declaration was signed by Susan B. Anthony and these other leading members of the NWSA: Lucretia Mott , Elizabeth Cady Stanton , Paulina Wright Davis , Ernestine L. Rose , Clarina I. H. Nichols , Mary Ann McClintock , Amy Post , Sarah Pugh , Matilda Joslyn Gage , Clemence Sophia Harned Lozier , Olympia Brown , Mathilde Franziska Anneke , Mathilde F. Wendt, Adelaide Thomson, Laura de Force Gordon , Ellen Clark Sargent , Virginia L. Minor , Sara Andrews Spencer, Lillie Devereux Blake , Phoebe Couzins , Jane Graham Jones, Abigail Scott Duniway , Belva A. Lockwood . Lucretia Mott, former president of

11438-550: The history of her wing of the movement, but she refused to cooperate in any way. Stanton's daughter Harriot Stanton Blatch , wrote the 120-page chapter on Stone and the AWSA, which appears in Volume 2. Even so, the History of Woman Suffrage places Stanton, Anthony and the NWSA at the center of the movement's history and marginalizes the role of Stone and the AWSA. Anthony traveled to Europe in 1883, linking up with Stanton, who had arrived

11571-516: The issue. Some women did not want to risk losing the chance for black males to get the right to vote, and figured that the women would get their turn. They saw this proposed amendment as a victory of sorts. Other women, including Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton , were angered by this decision and felt that it was not good enough, and that women should not be excluded from the vote. The Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments were eventually passed by Congress and women were still not granted

11704-491: The judge's order to stop talking and sit down, she castigated him for denying her a trial by jury, but said that even if he had allowed the jury to discuss the case, she still would have been denied a trial by a jury of her peers because women were not allowed to be jurors. The Supreme Court ruled in 1875 in Minor v. Happersett that "the Constitution of the United States does not confer the right of suffrage upon anyone". The NWSA

11837-465: The kind from the foundation of our free government to the present day." He privately asked Nebraska's governor to call a special legislative session to speed the process, securing the state's ratification. In April and December 1869, Congress passed Reconstruction bills mandating that Virginia, Mississippi, Texas and Georgia ratify the amendment as a precondition to regaining congressional representation; all four states did so. The struggle for ratification

11970-432: The late 1800s. The racism that defined the early twentieth century made it so black women were oppressed from every side: first, for their status as women, and then again for their race. Many politically engaged African-American women were primarily invested in matters of racial equality, with suffrage later materializing as a secondary goal. The Seneca Falls Convention , widely lauded as the first women's rights convention,

12103-421: The laws regardless of race, and sent it to the states for ratification. After a bitter struggle that included attempted rescissions of ratification by two states, the Fourteenth Amendment was adopted on July 28, 1868. Section 2 of the Fourteenth Amendment punished, by reduced representation in the House of Representatives, any state that disenfranchised any male citizens over 21 years of age. By failing to adopt

12236-556: The leadership of Margaret Murray Washington and Josephine St. Pierre Ruffin called the National Federation of Afro-American Women joined the Colored Women's League out of Washington, D.C. In 1896, both groups combined to form the National Association of Colored Women under the leadership of Mary Church Terrell . Terrell was a college educated woman and was named the first president. This group did many things to contribute to

12369-548: The many black women focused on advancing literary "artistic and intellectual development" among African Americans in the north was Bettiola Heloise Fortson . Fortson had been an active member of various women's clubs in the Chicago area and she founded her own women's literary studies club, the University Society of Chicago . All the African-American women who participated in this important struggle against their exclusion from

12502-507: The meeting at that point. Those remaining, including some non-affiliated activists, formed a new organization, the Union Woman Suffrage Association (UWSA) with Tilton as president and a Sixteenth Amendment as its central goal. Soon afterward, the executive committee of the moribund AERA met and voted, over Stone's objection, to merge into the UWSA. The next month, the NWSA itself merged into the UWSA, which essentially became

12635-438: The new tests required that African-American women read and interpret the Constitution before being deemed eligible to vote. In the South, African-American women faced the most severe obstacles to voting. These obstacles included bodily harm and fabricated charges designed to land them in jail if they attempted to vote. This treatment of African-American women in the South continued up until the 1960s. Fifteenth Amendment to

12768-836: The newly enfranchised black population. In 1865, Congress passed what would become the Civil Rights Act of 1866 , guaranteeing citizenship without regard to race, color, or previous condition of slavery or involuntary servitude. The bill also guaranteed equal benefits and access to the law, a direct assault on the Black Codes passed by many post-war Southern states. The Black Codes attempted to return ex-slaves to something like their former condition by, among other things, restricting their movement, forcing them to enter into year-long labor contracts, prohibiting them from owning firearms, and by preventing them from suing or testifying in court. Although strongly urged by moderates in Congress to sign

12901-556: The overall movement, and a fundamental difference in movement goals and political consciousness. Black women engaged in multi-pronged activism, as they did not often separate the goal of obtaining the franchise from other goals, and wide-scale racism added to the urgency of their more multi-faceted activism. Most black women who supported the expansion of the franchise sought to better the lives of black women alongside black men and children, which radically set them apart from their white counterparts. While white women were focused on obtaining

13034-463: The passage of the Fourteenth Amendment, which had explicitly protected only male citizens in its second section, activists found the civil rights of women divorced from those of blacks. Matters came to a head with the proposal of the Fifteenth Amendment, which barred race discrimination but not sex discrimination in voter laws. One of Congress's most explicit discussions regarding the link between suffrage and officeholding occurred during discussions about

13167-543: The pinnacle of development...to admit Black men to enfranchisement was to admit them into 'manhood', making ever more difficult the task of redefining citizenship...for women." She also presumed that all "lower orders" promoted "low ideas of womanhood." Stanton wrote, "American women of wealth, education, virtue and refinement, if you do not wish the lower orders of Chinese, Africans, Germans and Irish, with their low ideas of womanhood to make laws for you and your daughters, to be your rulers, judges, and jurors---to dictate not only

13300-413: The possibility of a merger. The proposal did not generate significant controversy within the AWSA. There was strong opposition within the NWSA, however. Ida Husted Harper , Anthony's co-worker and biographer, said the NWSA meetings that dealt with this issue "were the most stormy in the history of the association." Matilda Joslyn Gage , an opponent of the merger, formed a competing organization called

13433-478: The primary author of the Fourteenth Amendment, pushed for a wide-ranging ban on suffrage limitations, but a broader proposal banning voter restriction on the basis of "race, color, nativity, property, education, or religious beliefs" was rejected. A proposal to specifically ban literacy tests was also rejected. Some Representatives from the North, where nativism was a major force, wished to preserve restrictions denying

13566-536: The privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States … nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws." In January 1871, the UWSA delayed the opening session of its annual convention in Washington so its members could hear the historic address to the House Judiciary Committee by Victoria Woodhull , the first woman to speak before a Congressional body. A stockbroker with wealthy backers but little previous connection to

13699-459: The reason for this change. This compromised proposal was approved by the House on February 25, 1869, and the Senate the following day. The vote in the House was 144 to 44, with 35 not voting. The House vote was almost entirely along party lines, with no Democrats supporting the bill and only 3   Republicans voting against it, some because they thought the amendment did not go far enough in its protections. The House of Representatives passed

13832-407: The right of suffrage, but it invests citizens of the United States with the right of exemption from discrimination in the exercise of the elective franchise on account of their race, color, or previous condition of servitude, and empowers Congress to enforce that right by "appropriate legislation". The Court wrote: The Fifteenth Amendment does not confer the right of suffrage upon anyone. It prevents

13965-463: The right to vote. As time went on the leaders of the National Women's Suffrage Association began to see African-American Suffrage and White Suffrage as different issues. The reasons for this change in ideals varies, but in the 1890s younger women began to take the leadership roles and people such as Stanton and Anthony were no longer in charge. Another reason for the change in ideals among the movement

14098-399: The right to vote. This movement was prevalent in the South but eventually gained momentum in the North as well. African-American women were not deterred by the rising opposition and became even more aggressive in their campaign to find equality with men and other women. As a result, many women mobilized during this time period and worked to get African-American women involved and included in

14231-426: The states. Historian William Gillette wrote of the process, "it was hard going and the outcome was uncertain until the very end." One source of opposition to the proposed amendment was the women's suffrage movement, which before and during the Civil War had made common cause with the abolitionist movement. State constitutions often connected race and sex by limiting suffrage to "white male citizens." However, with

14364-477: The suffrage movement was healed in 1890, when the NWSA merged with its rival, the American Woman Suffrage Association (AWSA) to form the National American Woman Suffrage Association under the leadership of Anthony and Stanton. Women's suffrage in the U.S. emerged as a significant issue in the mid-1800s. A key event was the first women's rights convention, the Seneca Falls Convention in 1848, which

14497-583: The suffrage movement, by focusing on the education of the African-American community and women on local government issues. In 1913, the Alpha Suffrage Club was founded, with Ida B. Wells as one of the co-founders and leaders, this is believed to be the first African-American women's suffrage association in the United States. The group worked in publishing the Alpha Suffrage Record newspaper to canvas neighborhoods and voice political opinions. One of

14630-644: The territories by passing the Territorial Suffrage Act on January 10, 1867 (Source: Congressional Globe, 39th Congress, 2nd Session, pp. 381-82), blacks were granted the right to vote in the District of Columbia on January 8, 1867. Anticipating an increase in Democratic membership in the following Congress, Republicans used the lame-duck session of the 40th United States Congress to pass an amendment protecting black suffrage. Representative John Bingham ,

14763-402: The thirty-seven states, and forestalling any court challenge to New York's resolution to withdraw its consent. The first twenty-eight states to ratify the Fifteenth Amendment were: Secretary of State Hamilton Fish certified the amendment on March 30, 1870, also including the ratifications of: The remaining seven states all subsequently ratified the amendment: The amendment's adoption

14896-413: The two groups. Anthony opposed the idea of merger, as did her rival Lucy Stone. The NWSA sent three official representatives to the meeting who reported that their organization would agree to a merger only if the new organization agreed to work toward a Sixteenth Amendment to enfranchise women. Lucy Stone and two other AWSA members who were present as unofficial representatives of their organization left

15029-407: The verdict had been delivered. At the end of the trial, Justice Hunt delivered his opinion, which he had put in writing, and directed the jury to deliver a guilty verdict. When he asked Anthony if she had anything to say, she responded with "the most famous speech in the history of the agitation for woman suffrage", according to Ann D. Gordon , a historian of the women's movement. Repeatedly ignoring

15162-791: The white primary system created by the Democratic party in the " Texas primary cases " (1927–1953). Voting rights were further incorporated into the Constitution in the Nineteenth Amendment (voting rights for women, effective 1920), the Twenty-fourth Amendment (prohibiting poll taxes in federal elections, effective 1964) and the Twenty-sixth Amendment (lowering the voting age from 21 to 18, effective 1971). The Voting Rights Act of 1965 provided federal oversight of elections in discriminatory jurisdictions, banned literacy tests and similar discriminatory devices, and created legal remedies for people affected by voting discrimination. The Court also found poll taxes in state elections unconstitutional under

15295-439: The women's movement, she presented a modified version of the New Departure strategy. Instead of asking the courts to rule that the Constitution implicitly enfranchised women, she asked Congress to pass a declaratory act to accomplish the same goal. The committee did not accept her proposal. Woodhull was invited to give the same speech to the UWSA's afternoon session and was greeted there with enthusiasm. Woodhull's reputation as

15428-411: The women's suffrage movement waited seventy years or more to see the fruits of their labour. After the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment in 1920, African-American women, particularly those inhabiting Southern states, still faced a number of barriers. At first, African-American women in the North were easily able to register to vote, and quite a few became actively involved in politics. One such woman

15561-727: Was Annie Simms Banks who was chosen to serve as a delegate to Kentucky's Republican Party convention in March 1920. White southerners took notice of African-American female activists organizing themselves for suffrage, and after the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment, African-American women's voter registration in Florida was higher than white women's. African-American women were targeted by a number of disenfranchisement methods. These included having to wait in line for up to twelve hours to register to vote, pay head taxes, and undergo new tests. One of

15694-563: Was Lucy Stone, was willing for black men to achieve suffrage first, as the abolitionist movement insisted, and wanted to maintain close ties with the Republican Party. The other, whose leading figures were Stanton and Anthony, wanted women and black men be enfranchised at the same time and worked toward a politically independent women's movement that would no longer be dependent on abolitionists for financial and other resources. In 1868, Anthony and Stanton began publishing The Revolution ,

15827-425: Was arrested and found guilty in a widely publicized trial . After the Supreme Court ruled that the constitution did not implicitly enfranchise women, the NWSA worked for an amendment that would do so explicitly. The NWSA and its leaders also worked on related projects, such as a history of the women's suffrage movement and the establishment of the International Council of Women , which is still active. The split in

15960-512: Was arrested and found guilty in a widely publicized trial. The judge at the trial was Justice Ward Hunt , who had recently been appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court and who conducted the trial as part of the federal circuit court system at that time. The trial, United States v. Susan B. Anthony , was closely followed by the national press. Following a rule of common law at that time which prevented criminal defendants in federal courts from testifying, Hunt refused to allow Anthony to speak until

16093-514: Was formed in November 1869, with Lucy Stone as its primary leader. The AWSA was initially larger and better funded, but Stanton and Anthony were more widely known as leaders of the women's suffrage movement and were more influential in setting its direction. Membership of the NWSA came partly from activists in organizations that Anthony and Stanton had created. One of those was the Women's Loyal National League , whose 5000 members had by 1864 completed

16226-419: Was formed on May 15, 1869, to work for women's suffrage in the United States . Its main leaders were Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton . It was created after the women's rights movement split over the proposed Fifteenth Amendment to the U. S. Constitution , which would in effect extend voting rights to black men. One wing of the movement supported the amendment while the other, the wing that formed

16359-408: Was headquartered. Even after the Fifteenth Amendment was ratified in 1870, some important differences remained between the two organizations, and others emerged over time. The NWSA worked mostly at the federal level, focusing on a constitutional amendment to achieve women's suffrage, while the AWSA worked toward the same goal mostly at the state level. The NWSA's meetings were open to everyone, but

16492-442: Was important for the party's future. On February 26, 1869, after rejecting more sweeping versions of a suffrage amendment, Republicans proposed a compromise amendment which would ban franchise restrictions on the basis of race, color, or previous servitude. After surviving a difficult ratification fight and opposition from Democrats, the amendment was certified as duly ratified and part of the Constitution on March 30, 1870. According to

16625-414: Was initiated by Elizabeth Cady Stanton . Women's right to vote was endorsed at the convention only after a vigorous debate about an idea that was controversial even within the women's movement. Soon after the convention, however, it became a central tenet of the movement. In 1851, Stanton and Susan B. Anthony formed a decades-long partnership that became important to the women's rights movement and to

16758-537: Was met with widespread celebrations in black communities and abolitionist societies; many of the latter disbanded, feeling that black rights had been secured and their work was complete. President Grant said of the amendment that it "completes the greatest civil change and constitutes the most important event that has occurred since the nation came to life." Many Republicans felt that with the amendment's passage, black Americans no longer needed federal protection; congressman and future president James A. Garfield stated that

16891-403: Was no longer constitutional and exceeded Congress's enforcement authority under Section   2 of the Fifteenth Amendment. The Court declared that the Fifteenth Amendment "commands that the right to vote shall not be denied or abridged on account of race or color, and it gives Congress the power to enforce that command. The Amendment is not designed to punish for the past; its purpose is to ensure

17024-443: Was obliged to return to the far more difficult strategy of achieving suffrage by constitutional amendment. In 1878, Senator Aaron A. Sargent , who was married to NWSA treasurer Ellen Clark Sargent , introduced into Congress the women's suffrage amendment that more than forty years later would become the Nineteenth Amendment to the U. S. Constitution . Its text is identical to that of the Fifteenth Amendment except that it prohibits

17157-555: Was particularly close in Indiana and Ohio, which voted to ratify in May 1869 and January 1870, respectively. New York, which had ratified on April 14, 1869, tried to revoke its ratification on January 5, 1870. However, in February 1870, Georgia, Iowa, Nebraska, and Texas ratified the amendment, bringing the total ratifying states to twenty-nine—one more than the required twenty-eight ratifications from

17290-551: Was released on bail in 1972 and later acquitted of all criminal charges at her jury trial." The American Women's Suffrage movement began in the north as a middle-class white woman's movement with most of their members educated white women primarily from Boston, New York, Maine, and the Northeast. Attempts were made by the National Women's Suffrage Association (NWSA) to include working-class women, as well as black suffragists. In 1866

17423-483: Was sometimes elitist and racially condescending. According to Cheris Kramarae and Lana Raknow, Stanton distinguished between " 'colorophobia' " and her own belief in the "evolutionary development of the human 'race.' Stanton, for example, sometimes referred to the 'lower orders of mankind', an indication of her belief that education and 'civilization' were needed to bring groups of people (particularly American Blacks and white working-class immigrants) out of barbarism and to

17556-433: Was successfully filibustered in the Senate. From 1890 to 1910, poll taxes and literacy tests were instituted across the South, effectively disenfranchising the great majority of black men. White male-only primary elections also served to reduce the influence of black men in the political system. Along with increasing legal obstacles, blacks were excluded from the political system by threats of violent reprisals by whites in

17689-534: Was the growing "white supremacy" thinking of women entering the movement from the south. Now with dissention and disagreement among the NWSA, African-American women left and banded together to form their own organizations. In June 1892, the Colored Women's League (CWL) was founded in Washington, D.C. Under their president, Helen Appo Cook , the CWL fought for black suffrage and held night classes. A Boston-based group under

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