Editing Susan B. Anthony (section)

===Split in the women's movement===
[[Image:3a52946r Susan B Anthony.tif|thumb|right|180px|Susan B. Anthony, 1870]]

In May 1869, two days after the final AERA convention, Anthony, Stanton and others formed the [[National Woman Suffrage Association]] (NWSA). In November 1869, [[Lucy Stone]], [[Julia Ward Howe]] and others formed the competing [[American Woman Suffrage Association]] (AWSA). The hostile nature of their rivalry created a partisan atmosphere that endured for decades, affecting even professional historians of the women's movement.<ref>DuBois (1978), [https://archive.org/details/feminismsuffrage00dubo_0/page/n176 pp. 173, 189, 196].</ref>

The immediate cause for the split was the proposed [[Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution|Fifteenth Amendment]] to the [[Constitution of the United States|U.S. Constitution]], which would prohibit the denial of suffrage because of race. In one of her most controversial actions, Anthony campaigned against the amendment. She and Stanton called for women and African Americans to be enfranchised at the same time. They said that by effectively [[suffrage|enfranchising]] all men while excluding all women, the amendment would create an "aristocracy of sex" by giving constitutional authority to the idea that men were superior to women.<ref>Rakow and Kramarae eds. (2001), [https://books.google.com/books?id=Ahcmo4_Jko0C&pg=PA47 pp. 47–49].</ref> In 1873, Anthony said, "An oligarchy of wealth, where the rich govern the poor; an oligarchy of learning, where the educated govern the ignorant; or even an oligarchy of race, where the Saxon rules the African, might be endured; but surely this oligarchy of sex, which makes the men of every household sovereigns, masters; the women subjects, slaves; carrying dissension, rebellion into every home of the Nation, cannot be endured."<ref>Stanton, Anthony, Gage (1881–1922), Vol. 2, [https://archive.org/stream/historyofwomansu02stanuoft#page/635/mode/2up p. 635].</ref>

The AWSA supported the amendment, but Lucy Stone, who became its most prominent leader, also made it clear that she believed that suffrage for women would be more beneficial to the country than suffrage for black men.<ref>Stanton, Anthony, Gage, Harper (1881–1922), Vol. 2, [https://archive.org/stream/historyofwomansu02stanuoft#page/384/mode/2up p. 384]. Stone is speaking here during the final AERA convention in 1869. Support for the amendment did not necessarily mean that all AWSA members were free from the racial presumptions of that era. [[Henry Brown Blackwell|Henry Blackwell]], Lucy Stone's husband and a prominent AWSA member, published an open letter to Southern legislatures assuring them that if they allowed both blacks and women to vote, "the political supremacy of your white race will remain unchanged" and that "the black race would gravitate by the law of nature toward the tropics". See {{cite web |url= https://www.loc.gov/item/rbpe.12701100|title=What the South can do|author=Henry B. Blackwell|date=January 15, 1867|work=An American Time Capsule|publisher=Library of Congress|access-date=January 22, 2014}} Cited in Dudden (2011), p. 93.</ref>

The two organizations had other differences as well. The NWSA was politically independent, but the AWSA at least initially aimed for close ties with the Republican Party, hoping that the ratification of the Fifteenth Amendment would lead to a Republican push for women's suffrage. The NWSA focused primarily on winning suffrage at the national level while the AWSA pursued a state-by-state strategy. The NWSA initially worked on a wider range of women's issues than the AWSA, including divorce reform and [[equal pay for women]].<ref>DuBois (1978), pp. 197–200. The high point of Republican support was a non-committal reference to women's suffrage in the 1872 Republican platform.</ref>

Events soon removed much of the basis for the split in the women's movement. In 1870, debate about the Fifteenth Amendment was made irrelevant when that amendment was officially ratified. In 1872, disgust with corruption in government led to a mass defection of abolitionists and other social reformers from the Republicans to the short-lived [[Liberal Republican Party (United States)|Liberal Republican Party]].<ref>DuBois (1978), pp. 166, 200.</ref> As early as 1875, Anthony began urging the NWSA to focus more exclusively on women's suffrage rather than a variety of women's issues.<ref>Barry (1988), pp. 264–265.</ref> The rivalry between the two women's groups was so bitter, however, that a merger proved to be impossible for twenty years. The AWSA, which was especially strong in [[New England]], was the larger of the two organizations, but it began to decline in strength during the 1880s.<ref>Gordon (2009). [https://books.google.com/books?id=QSWhKqKt1moC&pg=PR25 pp. xxv, 55.]</ref>
In 1890, the two organizations merged as the [[National American Woman Suffrage Association]] (NAWSA), with Stanton as president but with Anthony as its effective leader. When Stanton retired from her post in 1892, Anthony became NAWSA's president.<ref>Barry (1988), pp. 296–299, 303</ref>