First Read: The Quest for Woman Suffrage

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In the 19th century, women in the United States lacked a number of basic rights. For example, married
women could not own property or keep the money that they earned from employment. Women were
excluded from professions such as law and medicine. In addition, women did not have the right to vote in
elections—a right known as woman suffrage. Many thought that women were not intelligent enough to
vote or were too fragile to participate in the political process. As U.S. politician Daniel Webster said, “The
rough contests of the political world are not suited to the dignity and delicacy” of women.

In the mid-1800s, two American women, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony, began to advocate
for women’s rights. Throughout the 1850s and 1860s, they worked tirelessly to expand women’s economic
rights and assist women in gaining the right to vote. In 1866, Stanton and Anthony helped form the
American Equal Rights Association (AERA), which aimed to secure voting rights for both women and
African American men. AERA members could not decide whether to support the proposed 15th
Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which would give African American men, but not women of any race,
the right to vote. The 15th Amendment read, “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.” Nowhere did it mention women.

The exclusion of women from the 15th Amendment angered Stanton and Anthony. Speaking at the
National Woman Suffrage Convention in January 1869, Stanton noted, “So long as there is a disfranchised
class in this country, and that class its women, a man’s government is worse than a white man’s
government….” In other words, women would suffer even more if all men could vote but women could not.
Anthony stated even more strongly, “I would sooner cut off my right hand than ask the ballot for the black
man and not for woman.”

As a result of this schism in the AERA, Stanton and Anthony formed the National Woman Suffrage
Association (NWSA) in New York City in May 1869. The NWSA opposed the 15th Amendment because it
excluded women. The NWSA’s newspaper stated the group’s bold motto: “Men, their rights and nothing
more; Women, their rights and nothing less.” The organization’s ambitious goals were to achieve suffrage
through a new amendment to the U.S. Constitution that included women, and to expand women’s
economic and social rights.

In November 1869, Lucy Stone and other former AERA members created the American Woman Suffrage
Association (AWSA). According to Stone, the AWSA was created “to unite those who cannot use the
methods which Mrs. Stanton and Susan use,” a statement that revealed her distaste for her rivals’
uncompromising approach to suffrage. Like the NWSA, the AWSA was dedicated to securing voting rights
for American women. Unlike the NWSA, the AWSA supported the 15th Amendment, focused narrowly on
suffrage rather than expanding women’s rights in general, and worked to achieve suffrage through
changes to state laws instead of the U.S. Constitution.

Women were never added to the 15th Amendment, which was ratified in 1870. Throughout the 1870s and
1880s, Anthony traveled around the country, giving impressive speeches and advising other suffragists.
She was arrested for voting illegally in the 1872 presidential election. At her trial, Anthony said, “The only
chance women have for justice in this country is to violate the law, as I have done, and as I shall continue
to do.” She was convicted and ordered to pay a fine of one hundred dollars, which she refused to do.

Over time, Anthony wisely realized that suffrage would not happen as long as the movement was divided,
so the NWSA joined with the AWSA in 1890 to become the National American Woman Suffrage
Association (NAWSA). NAWSA worked to achieve suffrage by getting enough state amendments ratified to
make Congress approve a new amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

Both Stanton and Anthony would serve as presidents of the NAWSA, but neither would live to see women
get the right to vote—Stanton died in 1902, and Anthony died in 1906. However, the goal of suffrage was
achieved in 1920, when the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was ratified: “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 sex.”

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