An OpEd by Linda Lopata, Director of Interpretation & Visitor Services, The National Susan B. Anthony Museum & House
After the American Civil War, equal rights advocates divided who should have the right to vote. At issue was whether discrimination based on race was different than discrimination based on sex. Susan B. Anthony believed both forms of discrimination were abhorrent and unconstitutional. This put her firmly at odds with radical abolitionists, like Gerrit Smith. When the 15th Amendment proposed enfranchising black men, Smith refused to speak up for women, fearing that “if put in the same line and urged in the same connection neither will be accomplished.”[1] Political expediency was the name of the game, and few abolitionists dared risk losing the black male vote for the sake of women.
At the heart of this pragmatic battle was sexism. Because women were inherently different than men, abolitionists argued, it was politically acceptable to treat them differently. When Frederick Douglass asked Susan B. Anthony “whether granting to woman the right of suffrage will change anything in respect to the nature of our sexes,” he accepted the conventional wisdom that a gulf existed between men and women that was more gaping than between blacks and whites.[2]In essence Douglass backed giving black men the means to protect women instead of providing women the legal ability to protect themselves. This sexist logic ran against everything that Susan B. Anthony stood for. When backed into the corner she retorted, “If you will not give the whole loaf of justice to the entire people, if you are determined to give it piece by piece, then give it first to women, to the most intelligent and capable portion of women at least…”[3]Replacing sexism with racist elitism, Elizabeth Cady Stanton chimed in, “think of Patrick and Sambo and Hans and Yung Tung who do not know the difference between a Monarchy and a Republic, who never read the Declaration of Independence or Webster’s spelling book, making laws for Lydia Marie Child, Lucretia Mott or Fanny Kimble.” [4]
These comments are hard to stomach today, even after taking into account how little control woman had over their lives. Many perceive Anthony as racist. In a rush to condemn these contemptuous rants counter arguments are often ignored. For example, Susan B. Anthony ended her response to Frederick Douglas by declaring, “It is not a question of precedence between women and black men…the business of this association is to demand for every man, black or white, and for every women, black or white, that they shall be this instance enfranchised and admitted into the body politic with equal rights and privileges.”[5]Susan B. Anthony fought for black rights, and Frederick Douglass fought for woman’s suffrage, but neither at the expense of their own first cause. During this charged era of history it was not a deal breaker for Frederick Douglass to embrace sexists nor Susan B. Anthony racists, as long as they contributed to their primary goal. Both were pragmatic, yet it is women who bear the brunt of backlash when they make political calculations.
[1]Ann D. Gordon, The Selected Papers of Elizabeth Cady Stanton & Susan B. Anthony, Volume II: Against an Aristocracy of Sex,( Rutgers University Press, 2000), 200.
[2]Ann D. Gordon, The Selected Papers of Elizabeth Cady Stanton & Susan B. Anthony, Volume II: Against an Aristocracy of Sex,( Rutgers University Press, 2000), 240.
[3]Ann D. Gordon, The Selected Papers of Elizabeth Cady Stanton & Susan B. Anthony, Volume II: Against an Aristocracy of Sex,( Rutgers University Press, 2000), 238-239.
[4]Ann D. Gordon, The Selected Papers of Elizabeth Cady Stanton & Susan B. Anthony, Volume II: Against an Aristocracy of Sex,( Rutgers University Press, 2000),196.
[5]Ann D. Gordon, The Selected Papers of Elizabeth Cady Stanton & Susan B. Anthony, Volume II: Against an Aristocracy of Sex,( Rutgers University Press, 2000), 240-241.