The Negro’s Hour & Split in the Woman Suffrage Movement

Post–Civil War Constitutional Changes

  • Proposed 14th Amendment (1866):

    • Granted citizenship to all born/naturalized in U.S.

    • Inserted the word “male,” limiting voting rights to men.

    • Stanton & Anthony immediately recognized the danger:

    • Stanton warned, “If that word ‘male’ be inserted… it will take us a century to get it out.”

  • Ratified 14th Amendment (July 1868):

    • Kept the male qualifier.

  • Proposed 15th Amendment (1869):

    • Prohibited denial of the vote “on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.”

    • Omitted “sex.”

Stanton & Anthony’s Position

  • Viewed male-only language as a direct betrayal of women who had fought for abolition.

  • Refused to support the 15th Amendment unless “sex” was added.

    • Anthony: “I would rather cut off my right hand than ask the ballot for the Black man and not for woman.”

"The Negro’s Hour" Argument

  • Radical Republicans & abolitionists (Wendell Phillips, Charles Sumner, Gerrit Smith) urged women to “wait their turn.”

    • Priority was Black male suffrage.

  • Phrase “This hour belongs to the Negro” epitomized the stance.

1869 American Equal Rights Association Convention (New York)

  • Stanton denounced granting suffrage to formerly-enslaved men before women.

    • Used racially charged language (“Sambo”).

  • Frederick Douglass countered:

    • Urgency greater for Black men due to violent racial persecution.

    • Conceded Black women also harmed, “but because she is Black.”

  • Convention voted to endorse the unmodified 15th Amendment.

Immediate Consequences: Movement Splits

  • National Woman Suffrage Association (NWSA):

    • Formed by Stanton & Anthony (May 1869).

    • Women-run, more radical.

    • Concluded women must rely on themselves.

  • American Woman Suffrage Association (AWSA):

    • Created by Lucy Stone and allies.

    • Larger, mixed-gender.

    • Supported the 15th Amendment.

  • Split weakened overall suffrage movement yet diversified strategy (radical vision vs. broad mass base).

Long-Term Significance

  • Cemented a core feminist conviction:

    • Only a woman-led movement would pursue women’s rights “the full length of the way.”