Editing Susan B. Anthony (section)

===Women's Loyal National League===
Anthony and Stanton organized the [[Women's Loyal National League]] in 1863 to campaign for an amendment to the [[Constitution of the United States|U.S. Constitution]] that would abolish slavery.
It was the first national women's political organization in the United States.<ref>{{cite web|url= https://www.pbs.org/stantonanthony/resources/index.html?body=biography.html|title=Biography|author=Judith E. Harper|work=Not for Ourselves Alone: The Story of Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony|publisher=Public Broadcasting System|access-date=January 21, 2014}}</ref> In the largest petition drive in the nation's history up to that time, the League collected nearly 400,000 signatures to abolish slavery, representing approximately one out of every twenty-four adults in the Northern states.<ref>Venet (1991), [https://books.google.com/books?id=PfE0ULar1JgC&pg=PA148 p. 148]. The League was called by several variations of its name, including the Women's National Loyal League.</ref>
The petition drive significantly assisted the passage of the [[Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution|Thirteenth Amendment]], which ended slavery. Anthony was the chief organizer of this effort, which involved recruiting and coordinating some 2000 petition collectors.<ref>Barry (1988), pp. 153–154.</ref>

The League provided the women's movement with a vehicle for combining the fight against slavery with the fight for women's rights by reminding the public that petitioning was the only political tool available to women at a time when only men were allowed to vote.<ref>Venet (1991), [https://books.google.com/books?id=PfE0ULar1JgC&pg=PA116 p. 116].</ref>
With a membership of 5000, it helped develop a new generation of women leaders, providing experience and recognition for not only Stanton and Anthony but also newcomers like [[Anna Elizabeth Dickinson|Anna Dickinson]], a gifted teenaged orator.<ref>Venet (1991), [https://books.google.com/books?id=PfE0ULar1JgC&pg=PA106 pp. 148–149].</ref>
The League demonstrated the value of formal structure to a women's movement that had resisted being anything other than loosely organized up to that point.<ref>Flexner (1959), [https://books.google.com/books?id=VjEw6ZnVm1EC&pg=PA105 p. 105].</ref>
The widespread network of women activists who assisted the League expanded the pool of talent that was available to reform movements, including the women's suffrage movement, after the war.<ref>Venet (1991), [https://books.google.com/books?id=PfE0ULar1JgC&pg=PA1 pp. 1–2].</ref>