Suffrage
Another concern of Lucretia
Mott was suffrage. At that time only
white men had the privilege of voting, even though it should have been a right
for everyone. From the National Women’s
Rights Convention of 1866 stemmed the American Equal Rights Association; Mott,
now more than seventy years old was made president.[52] The goal of the association was universal
suffrage.[53] This was a daunting task, seeing that blacks
were not even American citizens at this time and that women were still
struggling to be realized as citizens. And
in the future, it would be the issue that tore the women’s movement apart. The Fourteenth Amendment was ratified in
July 1868, which made blacks citizens.
Six months later the Fifteenth Amendment was introduced into Congress
(not ratified)--it protected one’s right to vote no matter “race, color, or
previous condition of servitude.”[54] What a remarkable hope it was that all men
might be able to vote. But this is
where the conflict among women’s activists began. Women’s rights leaders began to divide as whether to support it
or not; Anthony and Stanton were against it, while Garrison and Douglass
supported it.[55] And some people, such as Mott, did not take
sides.[56] Should women sacrifice the goal of women’s
suffrage for a time in order to reach another one of their goals? This question obviously provoked
tensions. By 1870, the young Equal
Rights Association had split because of these differences.[57] Nonetheless, the Fifteenth Amendment was
ratified in 1870, giving blacks suffrage rights. It would not be until 1920 that women gained suffrage rights with
the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment, but this event may have not come
so early, or at all, if it had not been for the work of women’s rights
activists such as Mott. Click
here to read the full text of Constitutional Amendments discussed in this
paper.[58]
This page was created by Leah Aubrey.
mailto:laubrey0@georgetowncollege.edu
This page was last updated on 2/23/01.
For best results, view this site through Internet Explorer.
Return to Lucretia Mott Homepage
Return
to History 338 Student Web Sites Page