Editing Lucy Stone (section)

== National organizations ==
=== American Equal Rights Association ===

Slavery was abolished in December 1865 with the ratification of the [[Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution|Thirteenth Amendment]] to the [[Constitution of the United States|U.S. Constitution]], which raised questions about the future role of the [[American Anti-Slavery Society]] (AASS). In January 1866, Stone and Anthony traveled to an AASS meeting in Boston to propose a merger of the anti-slavery and women's movements into one that would campaign for equal rights for all citizens. The AASS, preferring to focus on the rights of African Americans, especially the newly freed slaves, rejected their proposal.<ref>DuBois, 1978, p. 63</ref>

In May 1866, Anthony and Stanton organized the Eleventh [[National Women's Rights Convention]], the first since before the [[American Civil War|Civil War]] began.<ref>Stanton, Anthony, Gage, Harper (1881–1922), Vol. 2, [https://archive.org/stream/historyofwomansu02stanuoft#page/152/mode/2up pp. 152–53]</ref>
In a move similar to the proposal that had been made earlier to anti-slavery forces, the convention voted to transform itself into a new organization called the [[American Equal Rights Association]] (AERA), whose purpose was to campaign for the equal rights for all, especially the right of suffrage.<ref>Stanton, Anthony, Gage, Harper (1881–1922), Vol. 2, [https://archive.org/stream/historyofwomansu02stanuoft#page/170/mode/2up pp. 171–72]</ref> Stone did not attend the AERA's founding convention, most likely for fear of the recent [[cholera]] outbreak in New York City, the meeting's location. She was, nevertheless, elected to the new organization's executive committee. Blackwell was elected as the AERA's recording secretary.<ref>McMillen, 2015, [https://books.google.com/books?id=tPCRBQAAQBAJ&pg=PA164 p. 164]</ref>

In 1867, Stone and Blackwell opened the AERA's difficult campaign in [[Kansas]], in support of [[referendum]]s in that state that would [[suffrage|enfranchise]] both African Americans and women. They led the effort for three months, before turning the work over to others and returning home. Neither of the Kansas referendums was approved by the voters. Disagreements over tactics used during the Kansas campaign contributed to a growing split in the women's movement, which was formalized after the AERA convention in 1869.<ref>DuBois, 1978, pp. 79–81, 189</ref>

=== Split within the women's movement ===

The immediate cause of the split was the proposed [[Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution|Fifteenth Amendment]], which would prohibit the denial of suffrage, because of race. In one of their most controversial moves, Anthony and Stanton campaigned against the amendment, insisting that women and African Americans should 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, Lana F. and Kramarae, Cheris, editors, 2001. ''The Revolution in Words: Righting Women 1868–1871'', Volume 4 of ''Women's Source Library'', [https://books.google.com/books?id=Ahcmo4_Jko0C&pg=PA47 pp. 47–48]. New York: Routledge. {{ISBN|978-0-415-25689-6}}.</ref>

Stone supported the amendment. She had expected, however, that progressive forces would push for the [[suffrage|enfranchisement]] of African Americans and women at the same time and was distressed, when they did not. In 1867, she wrote to [[Abby Kelley Foster]], an abolitionist, to protest the plan to enfranchise black men first. "O Abby", she wrote, "it is a terrible mistake you are all making... There is no other name given by which this country <u>can</u> be saved, but that of <u>woman</u>."<ref>Letter from Lucy Stone to Abby Kelley Foster, January 24, 1867. Quoted in McMillen, 2008, p. 166. Underlining in original.</ref>
In a dramatic debate with [[Frederick Douglass]] at the AERA convention in 1869, Stone argued that suffrage for women was more important than suffrage for African Americans. She, nevertheless, supported the amendment, saying, "But I thank God for that XV. Amendment, and I hope that it will be adopted in every State. I will be thankful, in my soul, if ''any'' body can get out of the terrible pit. But I believe that the safety of the government would be more promoted by the admission of woman as an element of restoration and harmony than the negro."<ref>Stanton, Anthony, Gage, Harper (1881–1922), Vol. 2, [https://archive.org/stream/historyofwomansu02stanuoft#page/384/mode/2up p. 384]</ref> Stone and her allies expected that their active support for the amendment to enfranchise black men would lead their abolitionist friends in Congress to push for an amendment to enfranchise women as the next step, but that did not happen.<ref>DuBois, 1978, [https://archive.org/details/feminismsuffrage00dubo_0/page/199 p. 199].</ref>

Henry Blackwell, Stone's husband and an important figure in the suffrage movement in the coming years, also supported the amendment. His special interest, however, which he pursued for decades, was in convincing southern politicians that the enfranchisement of women would help to ensure white supremacy in their region.<ref>Wheeler, Marjorie Spruill, 1993. ''New Women of the New South: The Leaders of the Woman Suffrage Movement in the Southern States'', [https://books.google.com/books?id=kE6lZpmLmK0C&pg=PA113 pp. 113–14] New York: Oxford University Press. {{ISBN|0-19-507583-8}}.</ref> In 1867, he published an open letter to southern legislatures, assuring them that if both blacks and women were enfranchised, "the political supremacy of your white race will remain unchanged" and "the black race would gravitate, by the law of nature, toward the tropics."<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.loc.gov/item/rbpe.12701100/ |title=What the South can do |author=Henry B. Blackwell |date=January 15, 1867 |publisher= Library of Congress |access-date=March 7, 2017}}</ref> Stone's reaction to this idea is unknown.<ref>McMillen, 2015, [https://books.google.com/books?id=tPCRBQAAQBAJ&pg=PA166 p. 166]</ref>

The AERA essentially collapsed, after its acrimonious convention in May 1869, and two competing woman suffrage organizations were created in its aftermath. Two days after the convention, Anthony, Stanton and their allies formed the [[National Woman Suffrage Association]] (NWSA). In November 1869, Lucy Stone, [[Julia Ward Howe]], and their allies formed the competing [[American Woman Suffrage Association]] (AWSA).<ref>DuBois, 1978, pp. 189, 196.</ref> The AWSA, initially, was the larger of the two organizations,<ref>McMillen, 2015, [https://books.google.com/books?id=tPCRBQAAQBAJ&pg=PA185 p. 185]</ref> but it declined in strength, during the 1880s.<ref>Gordon, Ann D., ed., 2009, ''The Selected Papers of Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony: Their Place Inside the Body-Politic, 1887 to 1895'', Vol 5 of 6, [https://books.google.com/books?id=QSWhKqKt1moC&pg=PR25 p. xxv]. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press. {{ISBN|978-0-8135-2321-7}}.</ref>

Even after the Fifteenth Amendment was ratified in 1870, differences between the two organizations remained. The AWSA worked almost exclusively for women's suffrage, while the NWSA initially worked on a wide range of issues, including divorce reform and [[equal pay for women]]. The AWSA included both men and women, among its leadership, while the NWSA was led by women.<ref>DuBois, 1978, pp. 192, [https://archive.org/details/feminismsuffrage00dubo_0/page/197 196–197]</ref> The AWSA worked for suffrage, mostly, at the state level, while the NWSA worked more at the national level. The AWSA cultivated an image of respectability, while the NWSA sometimes used confrontational tactics.<ref>Anthony, for example, was arrested in 1872 for voting and found guilty in a highly publicized trial. In 1876, Anthony interrupted the official ceremonies at the 100th anniversary of the U.S. Declaration of Independence to present NWSA's Declaration of Rights for Women</ref>

=== Divorce and "free love" ===
In 1870, at the twentieth anniversary celebration of the first National Women's Rights Convention in Worcester, Massachusetts, Stanton spoke for three hours, rallying the crowd for women's right to divorce. By then, Stone's position on the matter had shifted, significantly. Personal differences between Stone and Stanton came to the fore on the issue, with Stone writing "We believe in ''marriage for life'', and deprecate all this loose, pestiferous talk in favor of ''easy divorce.''"<ref name=Kerr156 /> Stone made it clear that those wishing for "free divorce" were not associated with Stone's organization AWSA, headed, at that time, by Reverend [[Henry Ward Beecher]].<ref name=Kerr156 /> Stone wrote against 'free love:' "Be not deceived—''free love means free lust.''"<ref name=Kerr156 />

This editorial position would come back to haunt Stone. Also in 1870, Elizabeth Roberts Tilton told her husband [[Theodore Tilton]] that she had been carrying on an [[Adultery|adulterous]] relation with his good friend Henry Ward Beecher. Theodore Tilton published an editorial saying that Beecher "has, at a most unseemly time of life, been detected in improper intimacies with certain ladies of his congregation."<ref>Hays, 1961, p. 232.</ref> Tilton also informed Stanton about the alleged affair, and Stanton passed the information to [[Victoria Woodhull]]. Woodhull, a free love advocate, printed innuendo about Beecher, and began to woo Tilton, convincing him to write a book of her life story from imaginative material that she supplied.<ref>Hays, 1961, p. 233.</ref> In 1871, Stone wrote to a friend "my one wish, in regard to Mrs. Woodhull, is that [neither] she, nor her ideas, may be so much as heard of at our meeting."<ref>Kerr, 1992, p. 168.</ref> Woodhull's self-serving activities were attracting disapproval from both centrist AWSA and radical NWSA. To divert criticism from herself, Woodhull published a denunciation of Beecher, in 1872, saying that he practiced free love, in private, while speaking out against it, from the pulpit. This caused a sensation in the press and resulted in an inconclusive legal suit and a subsequent formal inquiry lasting well into 1875. The furor over adultery and the friction between various camps of women's rights activists took focus away from legitimate political aims. Henry Blackwell wrote to Stone from Michigan, where he was working toward putting woman suffrage into the state constitution, saying "This Beecher-Tilton affair is playing the deuce with [woman suffrage] in Michigan. No chance of success, this year, I fancy."<ref>Hays, 1961, p. 235.</ref>