Women Appeal for a Suffrage Amendment

Some suffrage activists were disappointed that the 15th Amendment did not explicitly protect women’s right to vote. Susan B. Anthony and others formed the National Woman Suffrage Association, based in Washington, D.C., to pressure Congress to pass an amendment that would guarantee women’s suffrage. The N.W.S.A. sent this appeal to hundreds of local groups, calling for a large petition drive to build support in Congress for a women’s suffrage amendment. Two years later, Senator Sargent of California, a friend of Anthony’s, introduced a women’s suffrage amendment. Within four years, both the Senate and House of Representatives had formed “special committees” on women’s suffrage.

To the Women of the United States: 

Having celebrated our Centennial birthday with a National jubilee, let us now dedicate the dawn of the Second Century to securing justice to Woman. 

For this purpose we ask you to circulate a petition to Congress, just issued by the “National Woman Suffrage Association,” asking an amendment to the United States Constitution, that shall prohibit the several states from disfranchising any of their citizens on account of Sex… 

…We urge the women of this country to make now the same united effort for their own rights, that they did for the slaves at the south, when the 13th amendment was pending… [Then] the leading statesmen who welcomed woman’s untiring efforts to secure the black man’s freedom, frowned down the same demands when made for herself. Is not liberty as sweet to her as to him? 

…[Making up] as we do one-half the people, bearing the burdens of one-half the National debt, equally responsible with man for the education, religion and morals of the rising generation, let us with united voice send forth a protest against the present political status of Woman…