American Equal Rights Association (AERA) for Suffrage

Importance: As the 14th and 15th amendments to the Constitution were debated, and some states debated black and woman suffrage, womens suffrage advocates tried to join the two causes  but with little success and a resulting split in the womens suffrage movement. Founded: 1866 Preceded by: American Anti-Slavery Society, National Womans Rights Conventions Succeeded by: American Woman Suffrage Association, National Woman Suffrage Association Founders: included Lucy Stone, Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Martha Coffin Wright, Frederick Douglass About the American Equal Rights Association In 1865, a proposal by Republicans of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution would have extended rights to those who had been slaves, and to other African-Americans, but also would introduce the word male to the Constitution. Womens rights activists had largely suspended their efforts for sexual equality during the Civil War. Now that the war was ended, many of whom had been active in both womens rights and anti-slavery activism, wanted to join the two causes -- womens rights and rights for African Americans. In January 1866, Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton proposed at the annual meeting of the Anti-Slavery Society the formation of an organization to bring the two causes together. In May of 1866, Frances Ellen Watkins Harper gave an inspiring speech at that years Womens Rights Convention, also advocating bringing the two causes together. The first national meeting of the American Equal Rights Association followed that meeting three weeks later. The fight for passage of the Fourteenth Amendment was also a subject of continuing debate, within the new organization as well as beyond it. Some thought that it had no chance of passage if women were included; others didnt want to enshrine the difference in citizenship rights between men and women in the Constitution. In 1866 through 1867, activists for both causes campaigned in Kansas, where both black and woman suffrage were up for a vote. In 1867, Republicans in New York took female suffrage out of their suffrage rights bill. Further Polarization By the second annual meeting (1867) of the American Equal Rights Association, the organization debated how to approach suffrage in the light of the 15th Amendment, by then in progress, which extended suffrage only to black males. Lucretia Mott presided at that meeting; others who spoke included Sojourner Truth, Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Abby Kelley Foster, Henry Brown Blackwell, and Henry Ward Beecher. The Political Context Moves Away From Women's Suffrage The debates centered around the increasing identification of racial rights proponents with the Republican Party, while womens suffrage proponents tended to be more skeptical of partisan politics. Some favored working for the passage of the 14th and 15th Amendments, even with their exclusions of women; others wanted both defeated because of that exclusion. In Kansas, where both woman and black suffrage were on the ballot, the Republicans began actively campaigning against womens suffrage. Stanton and Anthony turned to Democrats for support, and especially to one wealthy Democrat, George Train, to continue the fight in Kansas for womens suffrage. Train carried out a racist campaign against black suffrage and for woman suffrage -- and Anthony and Stanton, though they had been abolitionists, saw Trains support as essential and continued their association with him. Anthonys articles in the paper, The Revolution, became increasingly racist in tone. Both woman suffrage and black suffrage were defeated in Kansas. Split in the Suffrage Movement At the 1869 meeting, the debate was even stronger, with Stanton accused of only wanting the educated to vote. Frederick Douglass took her to task for denigrating black male voters. The 1868 ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment angered many who had wanted it defeated if it did not include women. The debate was sharp and the polarization clearly beyond easy reconciliation. The National Woman Suffrage Association was founded two days after that 1869 meeting ​and did not include racial issues in its founding purpose. All members were women. The AERA disbanded. Some joined the National Woman Suffrage Association, while others joined the American Woman Suffrage Association. Lucy Stone proposed bringing the two woman suffrage organizations back together in 1887, but it did not happen until 1890, with Antoinette Brown Blackwell, daughter of Lucy Stone and Henry Brown Blackwell, leading the negotiations.