A Break in the Ranks
After the Seneca Falls Convention, the suffrage movement was largely put on hold until the end of the Civil War. It was at this time that Elizabeth Cady Stanton teamed up with Susan B. Anthony and Lucy Stone to form the American Equal Rights Association (AERA), which they defined as being dedicated to enfranchising African Americans and women together (Mayo, 2007). Stanton and Anthony had both worked to help pass the 13th Amendment which abolished slavery and had hoped that the gains made by African Americans could be shared with women. When the war ended, however, the 14th Amendment defined "citizens" as all people born and residing in the United States and declared that no state could pass laws that denied rights to citizens; and the 15th amendment stated that voting rights could not be denied on account of race (Cornell). Anthony and Stanton fought to extend suffrage to women through one of these amendments but when they turned to their former African American allies they were told "this is the Negro's hour" (Clift, 2003). Anthony and Stanton were furious at this betrayal and vowed not to support the 15th Amendment unless voting rights were extended to black and white women. Their views were not shared by all members of the AERA, Lucy Stone and her husband Henry Blackwell felt that suffragists should support the enfranchisement of black men. This division eventually led to a split among the suffragists and the formation of two groups; Stanton and Anthony formed the more radical National Woman Suffrage Association (NWSA) and Lucy Stone headed the American Women Suffrage Association (AWSA), which was seen as more moderate (Clift, 2003). For twenty years the two groups differed not only on the 15th Amendment, but also on the fundamentals of what they were fighting for. The NWSA aimed their debate directly at Washington, fighting for a Constitutional Amendment that would guarantee women's suffrage along with a variety of other women's rights issues. The NWSA also initially denied participation in the organization to men, still angry over what they saw as a betrayal from the men they fought alongside during the Civil War, Stanton and Anthony preferred to fill their ranks with dedicated women (Clift, 2003). On the other side, the AWSA took a more moderate approach. Led by Lucy Stone and her husband, the AWSA supported the 15th Amendment and encouraged male support in the organization. They petitioned state-by-state on the issue of women's suffrage, preferring to work to amend individual state constitutions (Mayo, 2007).
The Arrest and Trial of Susan B. Anthony
After the passage of the 15th Amendment, the NWSA, under Susan B. Anthony's leadership, tried numerous tactics to get their voices heard in Congress. In 1870 a group of delegates from the NWSA appeared before the Senate Committee to persuade the committee to report out a bill to extend suffrage to women, they were met, however, with contempt and ridicule. Judge Cook of Illinois who was chair of the House committee scolded the women for wasting Congress's time (Clift, 2003). Two years later, as the reelection of Ulysses S. Grant loomed, the women of the NWSA tried to use the wording of the 14th Amendment to find a loophole in the law. The specific wording states "all persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside." Anthony decided to use this justification at the polls. Anthony and several other women went to the registrars and demanded to register to vote under the basis of the 14th Amendment. She was committed and threatened to sue each of the men there if they did not register her. Her plan worked and on Election Day she voted a straight Republican ticket (Clift, 2003). Anthony was arrested and given a trial date. In the weeks leading up to the trial she went on a public-relations tour during which she successfully gained the sympathy of men and women ensuring that there would be no way to find an unbiased jury. All her work did not pay off, however, as the trial turned out to be rigged from the start. Anthony was not allowed to testify on her own behalf, the judge wrote his decision before hearing any evidence, and ordered the jury to find her guilty. During the trial Anthony delivered a powerful speech and requested that her sentence reflect "the full rigor of the law." The judge fined her $100 which she refused to pay and which the government never collected. Although the trial was never a fair or unbiased one, one newspaper reported the truth of it, stating "she has voted and the American Constitution has survived the shock. Fining her one hundred dollars does not rule out the fact that...women voted, and went home, and the world jogged on as before" (Clift, 2003, p. 58). Through her arrest and trial, Anthony garnered more support than ever for the suffrage movement.
*(National Women's History Museum, 1874)