Postwar Disappointments

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Postwar Disappointments
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Question of womans rights

• Recap
• Movement had suspended activities during the war
• Womans National Loyal League (1862)
• Postwar period
• Alliance between abolitionists and womans rights
  advocates strained, then shattered
• Legislative acts and court decisions reaffirm the
  concept of separate spheres

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The Negros Hour

• Most former abolitionist believed that black
  mens rights should be prioritized after the CW
• But not everyone agreed
• Sojourner Truth
• There is a great stir about colored men getting
  their rights, but not a word about colored women
  and if colored men get their rights, and not
  colored women, you see the colored men will be
  masters over the women, and it will be just as
  bad as it was before. So I am for keeping the
  thing going while things are stirring, because if
  we wait till it is still, it will take a great
  while to get it going again.

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American Equal Rights Association (AERA)

• Founded in 1866 to strive for universal suffrage
• Referendum campaign in Kansas (1867)
• Initially, everything looks promising
• State Republicans launch anti-feminist campaign
• Former abolitionists decline to defend
  suffragists
• Suffragists turn to racist Democrats for support
• George Train
• Both measures defeated

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Conflict re. the 14th and 15th Amendments

• 14th Amendment,
• Designed to give black men citizenship
• Proposed in 1866 ratified in 1868
• Remains the single most significant change to the
  Constitution since the Bill of Rights
• Provides a broad definition of citizenship
• Overturned the infamous Dred Scott case (1857),
  which declared that blacks had no rights which
  the white man was bound to respect
• BUT, introduced the word male into the U.S.
  Constitution for the first time

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14th Amendment, section 1

• 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. No State shall make or
  enforce any law which shall abridge the
  privileges or immunities of citizens of the
  United States nor shall any State deprive any
  person of life, liberty, or property, without due
  process of law nor deny to any person within its
  jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

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14th Amendment, Section 2

• Representatives shall be apportioned among the
  several States according to their respective
  numbers, counting the whole number of persons in
  each State, excluding Indians not taxed. But when
  the right to vote at any election for the choice
  of electors for President and Vice President of
  the United States, Representatives in Congress,
  the Executive and Judicial officers of a State,
  or the members of the Legislature thereof, is
  denied to any of the male inhabitants of such
  State, being twenty-one years of age, and
  citizens of the United States, or in any way
  abridged, except for participation in rebellion,
  or other crime, the basis of representation
  therein shall be reduced in the proportion which
  the number of such male citizens shall bear to
  the whole number of male citizens twenty-one
  years of age in such State.

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Controversy surrounding the 14th Amendment

• Most former abolitionists applauded its
  ratification
• But Stanton and Anthony opposed it
• Resorted to race- and class-based arguments
• ECS If all men are to vote--black and
  white--lettered and unlettered, washed and
  unwashed, then the safety of the nation demands
  that we outweigh this incoming tide of ignorance,
  poverty and vice, with virtue, wealth and
  education of the women of the country.

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15th Amendment

• Designed to enfranchise former male slaves
• 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.
• Does not include sex as a protected status
• Amendment proposed in 1869 would be ratified in
  1870

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Conflict comes to a head

• Annual AERA meeting of 1869
• Case for freedmen
• F. Douglass "When women because they are women,
  are dragged from their homes and hung upon
  lamppostswhen they are in danger of having their
  homes burnt down over their headsthen they will
  have the urgency to obtain the ballot equal to
  the black man.
• Case for (white) women
• SBA the old anti-slavery school say women must
  stand back and wait until the Negroes shall be
  recognized. But we say, if you will not give the
  whole loaf of suffrage to the entire people, give
  it to most intelligent first.
• When the organization votes to back the 15th
  Amendment, SBA and ECS resign

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Split in the movement

• ECS and SBA establish the National Woman Suffrage
  Association (founded in 1869)
• Only admitted women
• Campaigned for a federal amendment
• Addressed a range of issues
• Divorce laws employment discrimination
• In response, Lucy Stone and others formed a rival
  organization, the American Woman Suffrage
  Association (1869)
• Supported the 15th Amendment
• Admitted men and women
• Believed in a gradual, state-by-state approach
• Focused only on suffrage

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Lucy Stone

• I will be thankful in my soul if any body can
  get out of the terrible pit."

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Turning to the courts

• In the 1870s, womens rights advocates tested the
  meaning of the 14th Amendment in the courts
• Was voting a privilege of citizenship that
  extended to all persons?
• SBA prosecuted for voting illegally in the 1872
  presidential election
• In 1873 Abby and Julia Smith (Galstonbury, CT)
  refuse to pay their property taxes

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Bradwell v. Illinois (1873)

• Myra Bradwell passes the bar exam with high
  honors in 1869, but the Illinois State Bar denies
  her admission
• Court rules her unable to practice law by reason
  of the disability imposed by your married
  condition
• Appeals case eventually goes to SC
• Bradwell loses
• Justice Bradley The paramount destiny and
  mission of woman are to fulfill the noble and
  benign offices of wife and mother. This is the
  law of the Creator.
• 14th Amendment does not supercede the
  disabilities of coverture

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Minor v. Happersett (1875)

• In 1872 Virginia Minor argued that, under the
  14th Amendment, her civil rights were violated
  when she was barred from registering to vote in
  St. Louis
• MO law Every male citizenshall be entitled to
  vote.
• SC upheld the decision on the grounds that
  citizen does not mean eligible voter voting
  is not one of the privileges or immunities of
  citizenship
• Suffragists give up on the courts turn their
  attention to Congress and the states

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Significance

• Shows the fragile nature of coalition politics
• Allies who had worked together for decades turned
  on one another
• Suffrage movement to a large extent became
  decoupled from a broader, more progressive agenda