Susan B. Anthony about 1855, left; Elizabeth Cady Stanton before 1869, right
The Women's Loyal National League, also known as the Woman's National Loyal League and other variations of that name, was formed on May 14, 1863, to campaign for an amendment to the U.S. Constitution that would abolish slavery. It was organized by Elizabeth Cady Stanton, its president, and Susan B. Anthony, its secretary. In the largest petition drive in the nation's history up to that time, the League collected nearly 400,000 signatures on petitions to abolish slavery and presented them to Congress. Its petition drive significantly assisted the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment, which ended slavery in the U.S. The League disbanded in August 1864 after it became clear that the amendment would be approved.
The League was the first national women's political organization in the United States. It marked a continuation of the shift of women's activism from moral suasion to political action, and from a women's movement that was loosely structured to one that was more formally organized. It also contributed to the development of a new generation of leaders and activists for the women's movement.
History
The Women's Loyal National League was formed on May 14, 1863, in New York City to organize support for an amendment to the U.S. Constitution that would abolish slavery.[1] The country was in the midst of the American Civil War at the time, with slavery a key issue.
The call to the League's founding convention
Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony organized the League's founding convention.[2] Both Stanton and Anthony are better known as campaigners for women's rights, but the leaders of the women's movement had agreed to suspend activity of that type during the Civil War and to focus instead on the fight against slavery.[3]Abolitionist work was already familiar to Anthony, who had previously worked as a paid representative of the American Anti-Slavery Society,[4] and to Stanton, whose husband had worked for the same organization.[5]
The League's name signaled its alignment with the effort to encourage loyalty to the Union during the Civil War by creating organizations called Union Leagues or Loyal Leagues.[6] The Emancipation Proclamation, which freed slaves in states that were in rebellion but not elsewhere, in some cases led abolitionists and their opponents to become involved in this movement in different ways. Conservatives in New York State, accommodating those who believed the Emancipation Proclamation was unconstitutional, formed an organization called the Loyal League of Union Citizens with the carefully worded purpose of supporting "the government in all its constitutional efforts to suppress the rebellion."[7] A group of abolitionists that included Henry B. Stanton, husband of Elizabeth Cady Stanton, formed a rival organization called the Loyal National League, which supported the emancipation of slaves in all states. Encouraged by their male abolitionist colleagues and relatives, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony created an organization that resembled the Loyal National League in both name and purpose but with a feminist perspective.[8]
Stanton and Anthony laid the groundwork for the new organization by publishing an "Appeal to the Women of the Republic" in the New York Tribune, an influential newspaper that opposed slavery, and circulating a tract that contained the appeal and the call to the convention.[9] Anthony opened the convention and nominated Lucy Stone, a prominent women's rights activist, as president of the meeting. Stanton gave the opening address. Other officers of the convention included well-known figures in the women's movement like Martha Coffin Wright, Amy Post, Antoinette Brown Blackwell, Ernestine Rose, and Angelina Grimké Weld.[10]
Anthony introduced several resolutions with a short speech that began, "There is great fear expressed on all sides lest this shall be made a war for the negro. I am willing that it shall be. It is a war which was begun to found an empire upon slavery, and shame on us if we do not make it one to establish the freedom of the negro... Instead of suppressing the real cause of the war, it should have been proclaimed not only by the people but by the President, Congress, Cabinet and every military commander."[11]
One of the resolutions she introduced read, "There can never be true peace in this republic until the civil and political rights of all citizens of African descent and all Women are practically established"[12] Some attendees opposed the resolution because it introduced the issue of women's rights, which they thought was divisive and not relevant to the goals of the organization. It was adopted by a large majority, however.[13]
Stanton was elected as president of the League and Anthony as its secretary.[14] Its office was located in the newly established Cooper Union in New York City.[15]
Using contacts developed by Stanton and Anthony through their previous work in the abolitionist and women's movements, the League launched a massive petition drive that gathered nearly 400,000 signatures calling for the U.S. Congress to pass an amendment that would abolish slavery.[16] The largest petition campaign in the nation's history up to that time, it gathered signatures from approximately one out every twenty-four adults in the Northern states.[17] Anthony was the chief organizer of this effort, which involved 2000 petition collectors.[18]
One of the petitions collected by the League
U.S. Senator Charles Sumner, the League's close ally in Congress, presented the names of the first 100,000 petitioners to Congress in dramatic fashion by arranging for two black men to carry the petitions, which had been glued end-to-end to form a large roll, onto the Senate floor.[19] Afterwards he made a show of frequently delivering large batches of additional petitions as they arrived.[20]
The petition drive was funded partly from donations from the petition signers themselves and partly from other donors.[21] The League also raised money by selling pins containing the words "In Emancipation is National Unity" and the image of a slave breaking his chains.[22] The Hovey Fund, created by a bequest from a supporter of abolition and women's rights, paid Anthony's salary of $12 per week. Anthony, who had no other source of income, stretched her salary by boarding with the Stanton's, who had a more comfortable financial situation.[23] The League also employed an office clerk and two field agents, Hannah Tracy Cutler and Josephine S. Griffing, both of whom were abolitionist and women's rights activists.[24]
The League held its second national convention in New York City on May 12, 1864.[25] One resolution adopted at this meeting called for black men to have voting rights and also the right to be employed as soldiers, sailors and laborers with pay equal to that of whites. Another called for women in the field of medicine be paid the same as men who were doing the same work.[26]
Slavery in the U.S. was abolished in 1865 by the Thirteenth Amendment. In August 1864, after it became clear that the amendment would be approved, the League judged its work to be over and closed its office.[27]
Name variations
The Appendix of Volume II of the History of Woman Suffrage, whose editors include Stanton and Anthony, reprints a lengthy newspaper article about the League's founding convention, including the adoption of this resolution: "Resolved, That the following be the official title and the pledge of the League—the pledge to be signed by all applicants for membership: 'Women's Loyal National League, organized in the city of New York, May 14, 1863.'"[28] The Appendix also reprints letters from the League's office using that name in its letterhead.[29] The main section of Volume II, however, presents the history of the League under a variation of that name: "The Woman's National Loyal League".[30] Other variations appear in the same volume,[31] and scholars in the earlier days of professionally written women's history referred to it by a confusing variety of names also. The exhaustively researched The Selected Papers of Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony, however, published by Ann D. Gordon in six volumes from 1997 to 2012, calls it by the official name used on the League's letterhead, "Women's Loyal National League".[32]
Significance
The League was the first national women's political organization in the United States.[33] It demonstrated the value of formal organization to a women's movement that had previously been only loosely structured.[34] (Before the Civil War the women's rights movement had only a few state associations and no national organization other than an informal coordinating committee that organized annual national conventions.[35]) Its petition drive marked a continuation of the shift of women's activism from moral suasion to political action.[36] It significantly assisted the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment, which abolished slavery in the U.S.[37]
The League contributed to the development of a new generation of women abolitionist leaders, providing experience and recognition not only for Stanton and Anthony but also for newcomers like Anna Dickinson, a gifted teenaged orator.[38] Its 5,000 members, 2,000 of whom actively circulated petitions, constituted a widespread network of women activists who gained experience that helped create a pool of talent for future forms of social activism.[39]
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.[40]
↑ Dudden (2011), p. 51. Dudden's source for the quote is Lincoln's League (1958), by Guy James Gibson, page 209.
↑ For "with a feminist perspective," see Venet (1991), p. 103. For "Loyal National League" and "male abolitionist colleagues," see Dudden (2011), p. 51. According to page 101 of Venet, Henry B. Stanton wrote a letter to Anthony that outlined the situation and exhorted, "Here then is work for you. Susan, put on your armor and go forth!"
↑ Stanton, Anthony, Gage (1887); p. 53. Stone's participation in the League's founding convention was significant for her because she had largely withdrawn from public activity during this period. According to one of her biographers, this was one of only two public appearances that she made during the Civil War. See Million (2003), p. 268.
↑ Harper (1898); p. 229 The web site of the Women's Rights National Historical Park says the resolution was defeated, but other sources say it passed, including The Encyclopedia of Women's History in America (1998) and the History of Woman Suffrage (1887). The latter says on page 59 that all resolutions except this one were passed unanimously, and on page 66 it says this resolution passed with a large majority.
↑ New York Tribune. New York. 15 May 1863.{{cite news}}: Missing or empty |title= (help) Reprinted in Stanton, Anthony, Gage (1887); p. 892. The newspaper article begins on page 888.
↑ It is called the "Loyal Women's National League" on page 80 and the "National Woman's Loyal League" on page 28.
↑ Eleanor Flexner's A Century of Struggle (1959), which did much to revive interest in the history of the women's movement, including the nearly forgotten League, refers to it as the "National Woman's Loyal League". Ellen Carol DuBois' Feminism and Suffrage (1978) calls it the "National Loyal Women's League". Wendy Hamand Venet's Neither Ballots nor Bullets: Women Abolitionists and the Civil War (1991) calls it "Woman's National Loyal League". Faye Dudden, on page 218, footnote 77 of her Fighting Chance: The Struggle over Woman Suffrage and Black Suffrage in Reconstruction America (2011), says, "The title of the organization varies, even within the HWS; I use the version preferred by Gordon in Selected Papers." Examples of Gordon's usage are in Gordon (1997), pp. 497 and 504.
↑ Judith E. Harper. "Biography". Not for Ourselves Alone: The Story of Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony. PBS (Public Broadcasting System). Retrieved June 11, 2013.
↑ Venet (1991), p. 148. On page 2, Venet points out that William Lloyd Garrison, an influential abolitionist, popularized the approach of opposing slavery with moral suasion rather than participation in a political system he considered to be morally corrupt.
Susan B. Anthony was an American social reformer and women's rights activist who played a pivotal role in the women's suffrage movement. Born into a Quaker family committed to social equality, she collected anti-slavery petitions at the age of 17. In 1856, she became the New York state agent for the American Anti-Slavery Society.
Elizabeth Cady Stanton was an American writer and activist who was a leader of the women's rights movement in the U.S. during the mid- to late-19th century. She was the main force behind the 1848 Seneca Falls Convention, the first convention to be called for the sole purpose of discussing women's rights, and was the primary author of its Declaration of Sentiments. Her demand for women's right to vote generated a controversy at the convention but quickly became a central tenet of the women's movement. She was also active in other social reform activities, especially abolitionism.
Lucy Stone was an American orator, abolitionist and suffragist who was a vocal advocate for and organizer promoting rights for women. In 1847, Stone became the first woman from Massachusetts to earn a college degree. She spoke out for women's rights and against slavery. Stone was known for using her birth name after marriage, contrary to the custom of women taking their husband's surname.
The National Woman Suffrage Association (NWSA) was formed on May 15, 1869, to work for women's suffrage in the United States. Its main leaders were Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton. It was created after the women's rights movement split over the proposed Fifteenth Amendment to the U. S. Constitution, which would in effect extend voting rights to black men. One wing of the movement supported the amendment while the other, the wing that formed the NWSA, opposed it, insisting that voting rights be extended to all women and all African Americans at the same time.
The National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA) was an organization formed on February 18, 1890, to advocate in favor of women's suffrage in the United States. It was created by the merger of two existing organizations, the National Woman Suffrage Association (NWSA) and the American Woman Suffrage Association (AWSA). Its membership, which was about seven thousand at the time it was formed, eventually increased to two million, making it the largest voluntary organization in the nation. It played a pivotal role in the passing of the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which in 1920 guaranteed women's right to vote.
The Revolution was a newspaper established by women's rights activists Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton in New York City. It was published weekly between January 8, 1868, and February 17, 1872. With a combative style that matched its name, it primarily focused on women's rights, especially prohibiting discrimination against women's suffrage in the United States, and women's suffrage in general. It also covered other topics, such as politics, the labor movement, and finance. Anthony managed the business aspects of the paper, while Stanton was co-editor along with Parker Pillsbury, an abolitionist and a supporter of women's rights.
Women's suffrage, or the right to vote, was established in the United States over the course of more than half a century, first in various states and localities, sometimes on a limited basis, and then nationally in 1920 with the ratification of the 19th Amendment to the United States Constitution.
The American Woman Suffrage Association (AWSA) was a single-issue national organization formed in 1869 to work for women's suffrage in the United States. The AWSA lobbied state governments to enact laws granting or expanding women's right to vote in the United States. Lucy Stone, its most prominent leader, began publishing a newspaper in 1870 called the Woman's Journal. It was designed as the voice of the AWSA, and it eventually became a voice of the women's movement as a whole.
The National Women's Rights Convention was an annual series of meetings that increased the visibility of the early women's rights movement in the United States. First held in 1850 in Worcester, Massachusetts, the National Women's Rights Convention combined both female and male leadership and attracted a wide base of support including temperance advocates and abolitionists. Speeches were given on the subjects of equal wages, expanded education and career opportunities, women's property rights, marriage reform, and temperance. Chief among the concerns discussed at the convention was the passage of laws that would give women the right to vote.
Not for Ourselves Alone: The Story of Elizabeth Cady Stanton & Susan B. Anthony is a 1999 documentary by Ken Burns produced for National Public Radio and WETA. The documentary explores the movement for women's suffrage in the United States in the 19th century, focusing on leaders Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony. It won a Peabody Award in 1999. It was released on VHS on November 9, 1999.
Hannah Maria Conant Tracy Cutler was an American abolitionist as well as a leader of the temperance and women's suffrage movements in the United States. Cutler served as president of the Ohio Woman Suffrage Association and the American Woman Suffrage Association (AWSA). Cutler helped to shape the merger of two feminist factions into the combined National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA).
Susan B. Anthony Day is a commemorative holiday to celebrate the birth of Susan B. Anthony and women's suffrage in the United States. The holiday is February 15—Anthony's birthday.
The American Equal Rights Association (AERA) was formed in 1866 in the United States. According to its constitution, its purpose was "to secure Equal Rights to all American citizens, especially the right of suffrage, irrespective of race, color or sex." Some of the more prominent reform activists of that time were members, including women and men, blacks and whites.
The Hovey Fund was created by a bequest from Charles Fox Hovey (1807-1859), a Boston merchant who supported a variety of social reform movements. Hovey left $50,000 to support abolitionism and other types of social reform, including "women's rights, non-resistance, free trade and temperance." Hovey appointed a committee of trustees to administer the fund, headed by abolitionist Wendell Phillips. Hovey specified that the funds should be spent at the rate of $8,000 per year to meet immediate needs.
The New England Woman Suffrage Association (NEWSA) was established in November 1868 to campaign for the right of women to vote in the U.S. Its principal leaders were Julia Ward Howe, its first president, and Lucy Stone, who later became president. It was active until 1920, when suffrage for women was secured by the Nineteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
History of Woman Suffrage is a book that was produced by Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, Matilda Joslyn Gage and Ida Husted Harper. Published in six volumes from 1881 to 1922, it is a history of the women's suffrage movement, primarily in the United States. Its more than 5700 pages are the major source for primary documentation about the women's suffrage movement from its beginnings through the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which enfranchised women in the U.S. in 1920. Written from the viewpoint of the wing of the movement led by Stanton and Anthony, its coverage of rival groups and individuals is limited.
The Rochester Women's Rights Convention of 1848 met on August 2, 1848 in Rochester, New York. Many of its organizers had participated in the Seneca Falls Convention, the first women's rights convention, two weeks earlier in Seneca Falls, a smaller town not far away. The Rochester convention elected Abigail Bush as its presiding officer, making it the first U.S. public meeting composed of both sexes to be presided by a woman. This controversial step was opposed even by some of the meeting's leading participants. The convention approved the Declaration of Sentiments that had first been introduced at the Seneca Falls Convention, including the controversial call for women's right to vote. It also discussed the rights of working women and took steps that led to the formation of a local organization to support those rights.
The Ohio Women's Convention at Salem in 1850 met on April 19–20, 1850 in Salem, Ohio, a center for reform activity. It was the third in a series of women's rights conventions that began with the Seneca Falls Convention of 1848. It was the first of these conventions to be organized on a statewide basis. About five hundred people attended. All of the convention's officers were women. Men were not allowed to vote, sit on the platform or speak during the convention. The convention sent a memorial to the convention that was preparing a new Ohio state constitution, asking it to provide for women's right to vote.
United States v. Susan B. Anthony was the criminal trial of Susan B. Anthony in a U.S. federal court in 1873. The defendant was a leader of the women's suffrage movement who was arrested for voting in Rochester, New York in the 1872 elections in violation of state laws that allowed only men to vote. Anthony argued that she had the right to vote because of the recently adopted Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, part of which reads, "No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States."
Cullen-DuPont, Kathryn (1998). The Encyclopedia of Women's History in America (first ed.), "National Woman's Loyal League," pages 149–150. New York: Da Capo Press. ISBN0-306-80868-4.
Harper, Ida Husted (1899). The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony, Volume 1, Chapter XIV, "Woman's National Loyal league. 1863–1864," pages 225–240. Indianapolis & Kansas City: Bowen-Merrill.
Stanton, Elizabeth Cady; Anthony, Susan B.; Gage, Matilda Joslyn (1887). History of Woman Suffrage, Volume 2. Rochester, NY: Susan B. Anthony (Charles Mann printer).
Women's Rights National Historical Park, National Park Service. More Women's Rights Conventions. "The First Woman's National Loyal League Convention".
External links
Proceedings of the Meeting of the Loyal Women of the Republic, Held in New York, May 14, 1863, the proceedings of the League's founding convention, made available by the Cornell University Library (which calls it the "Women's National Loyal League" despite the fact that on pages 79 and 80 the organization identifies itself as the "Women's Loyal National League".) Only some of the text is viewable via Amazon.
To the Women of the Republic, an open letter from Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony to the women of the U.S. in January 1864 urging them to sign the League's petition against slavery. Published on the web by the Public Broadcasting System.
The Prayer of One Hundred Thousand, the speech that Senator Charles Sumner gave at the presentation to the Senate of the first 100,000 names on the League's petition, November, 1864. It includes a state-by-state breakdown of the petitions collected. Published on the web by the Library of Congress.
Handwritten letter on Women's Loyal National League letterhead stationery from Susan B. Anthony to Senator Charles Sumner in May 1865. On the same page is an image of the pin depicting a slave breaking his chains that the League sold to raise funds for their petition drive. This page is from Gordon (1997) in a group of plates following page 304.
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