Historical replay

Women and blacks once marched together down the road to equality, the latter getting there first.

Abolitionist agitator and writer Frederick Douglass broke with suffragettes like Susan B. Anthony over voting rights in 1869. It signaled the divergence of two movements, one that echos the recent struggle between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.

ALBUQUERQUE -- In observing the historic candidacies of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama for the presidency of the United States, one might be reminded of a time in the mid-19th century when women and blacks were struggling for rights equal to those of white men on a much more basic level than that of holding the nation's top elective office.

During that period in American history, women's rights advocate Susan B. Anthony and slavery abolitionist Frederick Douglass worked tirelessly to support each other's causes; they even became close friends.

Douglass participated in the first Women's Rights Convention in Seneca Falls, N.Y., in 1848, where Anthony read a Declaration of Sentiments, a declaration of rights for women based on the wording of the Declaration of Independence. Douglass was among its signers.

Eleven years later, at the ninth national Women's Rights Convention in 1859, Anthony continued to include blacks in the women's suffrage movement when she asked the convention, "Where, under our Declaration of Independence, does the Saxon man get his power to deprive all women and Negroes of their inalienable rights?"

Slavery was abolished in the last month of 1865 with the 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

In 1866 Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and others founded the American Equal Rights Association, whose mission was to "secure Equal Rights to all American citizens, especially the Right of Suffrage, irrespective of race, color or sex." 

But as each group got closer to the gains they sought, it became clear that the nation was not ready to bestow voting rights on both groups.

At the AERA convention of 1867, women's rights leaders began to say they would not support the vote for black men unless it were given at the same time to all women, regardless of race.

A year later, in 1868, Congress ratified the 14th Amendment, which, among other rights, guaranteed all persons equal due process under the law, a provision written to give former slaves rights equal to those of other citizens.

Still, however, blacks did not have the right to vote.

As it became clear states were leaning toward passage of a 15th amendment giving black men the right to vote, those at the January 1869 National Woman Suffrage Convention talked of a 16th amendment that would give voting rights to women, with Stanton speaking passionately in its favor:

I would press a Sixteenth Amendment, because the history of American statesmanship does not inspire me with confidence in man's capacity to govern the nation alone, with justice and mercy. I have come to this conclusion, not only from my own observation, but from what our rulers say of themselves. Honorable Senators have risen in their places again and again, and told the people of the wastefulness and corruption of the present administration. Others have set forth, with equal clearness, the ignorance of our rulers on the question of finance. ...
 

Just a few months later, in May, the AERA met and, for the first time, Douglass and Anthony found themselves sparring pointedly on opposite sides of a spirited debate that is well worth reading. Douglass could not pass on the opportunity for black men to have the vote, while Anthony questioned why women should continue to support black rights in the absence of all-or-nothing solidarity.

Some excerpts:

DOUGLASS: I must say that I do not see how any one can pretend that there is the same urgency in giving the ballot to woman as to the Negro. With us, the matter is a question of life and death, at least, in fifteen States of the Union. When women, because they are women, are hunted down through the cities of New York and New Orleans; when they are dragged from their houses and hung upon lamp-posts; when their children are torn from their arms, and their brains dashed out upon the pavement; when they are objects of insult and outrage at every turn; when they are in danger of having their homes burnt down over their heads; when their children are not allowed to enter schools; then they will have an urgency to obtain the ballot equal to our own. [Applause.] 

ANTHONY: Mr. Douglass talks about the wrongs of the Negro; but with all the outrages that he today suffers, he would not exchange his sex and take the place of Elizabeth Cady Stanton. [Laughter and applause.] ... [Those of] the old anti-slavery school say women must stand back and wait until the Negroes shall be recognized. But we say, if you will not give the whole loaf of suffrage to the entire people, give it to the most intelligent first. [Applause.]

In the end, the AERA voted to support the 15th Amendment, which in 1870 granted the vote to black men, but not to women.

Hard feelings over broken loyalties and even racist comments led, in fact, to a split among women suffragists, with Anthony and Stanton breaking from more conservative colleagues like Julia Ward Howe [notable also as author of "Battle Hymn of the Republic" and of a proclamation that led to the creation of Mother's Day]. She and others formed a separate group, the American Woman Suffrage Association.  

Twenty years later, in 1890, the two groups reunited as the National American Woman Suffrage Association.

It was another 30 years before the suffragettes reached their goal: the 19th Amendment, ratified in 1920 -- a full 50 years after the right to vote was granted to black men.

This history might provide Clinton supporters a reason to put aside thoughts of protest, by either voting Republican or sitting out the election altogether. History has shown the wait can be long in unity's absence.

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