National Woman Suffrage Association - The Split of The Suffrage Movement

The Split of The Suffrage Movement

Although the harbingers of dissent within different factions of the woman suffrage movement may be seen in the National Woman's Rights Convention of 1860 (the last national convention before the outbreak of the war, woman's rights activism largely ceased during the Civil War. The movement re-emerged to the national scene in 1866 to organize formally under a new name - the American Equal Rights Association (AERA) - and defined by a new platform. Confronted by the proposal of the reconstruction amendments, which introduced the word "male" to the United States Constitution, the AERA eventually dissolved over whether suffrage for emancipated slaves and women would be pursued simultaneously. The schism was cemented by the decision of Republican lawmakers and their former abolitionist allies that this was "the Negro's hour," leaving woman suffrage to be deferred to a more opportune moment.

Following the May 1869 American Equal Rights Association convention, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony established the National Woman Suffrage Association (hereby referred to as "the National"). Feeling misguided and deceived, Stanton and Anthony resorted to such bold action largely due to their belief that the preponderance of men composing the AERA leadership had betrayed women's interest. In addition to a feeling of betrayal, deep differences between the factions of the movement centered on numerous issues. The most important of which focused on how AERA funds were to be used, and whether the reconstruction amendments should be supported despite their failure to include women.

Meeting at the Women's Bureau in New York City, Stanton, Anthony and delegates from nineteen states of the AERA convention, appointed Elizabeth Cady Stanton as the National's President. Other prominent activists forming the National were Lucretia Mott, Martha Coffin Wright, Ernestine Rose (part of the Executive Committee), Pauline Wright Davis (Advisory Counsel of Rhode Island), Reverend Olympia Brown, Matilda Joslyn Gage, Anna E. Dickinson (Vice-President of Pennsylvania), Elizabeth Smith Miller and Mary Cheney Greeley among others. The women immediately turned their efforts toward passage of a Constitutional Amendment giving women the right to vote.

In response, Lucy Stone, Henry Blackwell, Julia Ward Howe and Wendell Phillips among others established the American Woman Suffrage Association in September of that year in Boston. The death knell had rung upon the American Equal Rights Association.