In Her Own Right : The Life of Elizabeth Cady Stanton Read Free Page A

three-fourths of the reunited states. In effect, Southern legislatures would be forced to ratify it. 9
    During the summer of 1865 Congressman Robert Dale Owen of Indiana, an ally of Stanton’s on divorce reform, sent her copies of the various drafts of the Fourteenth Amendment. 10 Insertion of the word “male” to define citizens and legal voters jarred Stanton. Previously women had assumed they were citizens. The question of whether or not women might vote had been considered a state matter, similar to property rights or divorce reform. Female property owners had frequently voted before the Revolution, and in New Jersey women had voted in all elections until 1808. More recently widows and other female taxpayers had been allowed to vote in some states on some subjects, such as school board members and bond issues. The proposed Fourteenth Amendment equated citizenship with voting rights and made both dependent on gender. Without the word “male,” the language could be interpreted to include women as citizens and voters. With the word “male”, it would require another constitutional amendment to enfranchise women.
    Having been seduced by her own wartime rhetoric, Stanton still believed that women would be rewarded with the vote for their service to the nation. She was outraged at the infidelity of her antislavery allies. She demanded that Phillips and the abolitionists insist that the Fourteenth Amendment include women. He refused to “mix the movements,” because “such mixture would lose for the Negro far more than we should gain for the woman.” In order to abolish slavery, Phillips and the abolitionists insisted on recognizing Negro citizenship, “where citizenship supposes the ballot for all men.” An angry Stanton shot back: “May I ask in reply to your fallacious letter just one question based on the apparent opposition in which you place the Negro and woman. My question is: Do you believe the African race is composed entirely of males?” With Phillips and “the whole fraternity” favoring Negro rather than universal suffrage, “woman’s cause is in deep water,” Stanton reported to Anthony in mid-1865. “Come back and help.” 11
    Anthony returned from Kansas in August. Together she and Stanton planned several steps, first initiating a petition drive and then convening a women’s rights convention. As Stanton recalled, “Miss Anthony and I were the first to see the full significance of the word ‘male’ in the Fourteenth Amendment, and we at once sounded the alarm.” They sent out petitions for a constitutional amendment to “prohibit the states from disenfranchising any of their citizens on the grounds of sex.” 12
    After a six-month effort they had collected only ten thousand signatures,less than 3 percent of the number who had favored the Thirteenth Amendment. Few former members of the Loyal League were helpful now. Nor were earlier advocates of women’s rights supportive. When Martha Wright admitted wanting to “rest on her oars,” Stanton chastised her, promising to persevere alone if necessary.
[Your] letter . . . would have been a wet blanket to Susan and me were we not sure that we are right. . . . If the petition goes with two names only, ours be the glory, and shame to all the rest. We have had a thousand petitions printed, and when they are filled they will be sent to Democratic members who will present them to the House. But if they come back to us empty, Susan and I will sign every one, so that every Democratic member may have one with which to shame those hypocritical Republicans. 13
     
    Republican refusal to accept the suffrage petitions contributed to the reluctance of reform women to sign them. Sen. Charles Sumner considered the petitions “most importune”; Rep. Thaddeus Stevens refused to introduce those Mrs. Stanton sent him. 14 The refusal infuriated Stanton and confirmed her worst suspicions about the Republican party. When Stanton and Anthony then turned to