National American Woman Suffrage Association - Background Conflict

Background Conflict

In 1866, Lucy Stone and Susan B. Anthony proposed a new suffrage organization, the American Equal Rights Association (AERA), to push for equal rights for both African Americans and women, and especially to work for universal suffrage, the right to vote given to all people. In 1869, tensions formed regarding the proposed Fifteenth Amendment which would give black men the right to vote. Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Anthony and an outspoken few were unwilling to yield to the political situation which appeared to Stone and a majority of other activists to favor passage of the amendment for black men's voting rights but not passage of women's voting rights. Stone was willing to work for passage of the Fifteenth Amendment, the success of which was to be followed directly by a renewed effort on behalf of women. By May 1869, the split between Stone's political realist group and the Stanton-Anthony group came to a head. Anthony and Stanton worked behind Stone's back to create the splinter group NWSA, formed to put pressure on the federal government to adopt a woman suffrage amendment, but which also pushed for a wider scope of women's rights, including easier divorce laws.

In reaction, Stone formed the AWSA in November 1869 with Julia Ward Howe, Josephine Ruffin, and Henry Browne Blackwell, Stone's husband. A more moderate organization that attracted a majority of suffragists, the AWSA worked primarily at passing legislation at the state and local level, with a secondary effort focused at influencing federal elections and winning the opinion of federal legislators. The AWSA fostered local suffrage groups with financial grants and by helping draft proposed laws.

The NWSA tended to take a more radical position than the AWSA. It established itself as an organization that would only allow female members, and it passed a resolution opposing the Fifteenth Amendment, angering many Negro activists and white abolitionists. Later, the NWSA associated itself with George Francis Train who actively opposed any expansion of rights for African-Americans.

The AWSA attracted more moderate members, and was less militant than the NWSA. The AWSA did not campaign on other issues besides votes for women. In 1870, the AWSA founded the Woman's Journal, a magazine edited by Lucy Stone and her daughter, Alice Stone Blackwell.

The NWSA contained a tension of its own. Susan B. Anthony wished to focus exclusively upon women's suffrage. Stanton and other radical suffragists pushed for a broader scope, to address the many concerns of women.

The NWSA addressed many issues at the state and local level, but particularly worked to put proposed legislation in front of Congress. The AWSA worked primarily at the state and local level, but applied some pressure at the federal level.