The southern legislatures, while accepting the Thirteenth Amendment, which prohibited slavery, passed various laws whose effect could not be other than to keep the negro in a condition of “involuntary servitude.”  To the South these measures seemed to be demanded by ordinary prudence to retain at least temporary control of a race unfitted for a wise use of liberty; to the North they appeared a determination to evade the provisions of the Thirteenth Amendment, and Congress decided upon more radical measures.  One wing of the old Abolitionists, under the leadership of Phillips, had steadfastly insisted that there could be no real freedom without the ballot.  Several attempts had been made to secure congressional action for the enfranchisement of the negro, which the majority of Republicans had now come to see was essential for his protection, and these resulted finally in the submission of the Fourteenth Amendment.  Charles Sumner stated that he covered nineteen pages of foolscap in his effort so to formulate it as to omit the word “male” and, at the same time, secure the ballot for the negro.

When Miss Anthony and Mrs. Stanton sounded the alarm, the old leaders in the movement for woman’s rights came at once to their aid, but they were soon to meet with an unexpected and serious disappointment.  In January Miss Anthony went to the anti-slavery meeting at Boston, full of the new idea of consolidating the old Anti-Slavery and the Woman’s Rights Societies under one name, that of the Equal Rights Association.  She was warmly supported by Tilton, Lucy Stone, Powell and others, but to their amazement they found Mr. Phillips very cool and discouraging.  He said this could be done only by amending the constitution of the Anti-Slavery Society, which required three months’ notice.  Still they did not dream of his opposing the proposition and so deputized Mr. Powell to give the formal notice, in order that it might be acted upon at the coming May Anniversary.  On the way back the New York delegation discussed this new plan enthusiastically, and Miss Anthony wrote home that there was a strong wish in the society to widen its object so as to include universal suffrage, believing this to be the case.  The necessary steps at once were taken for calling a national woman’s rights meeting to convene in New York the same week as the Anti-Slavery Anniversary, and the following call was issued setting forth its principal objects: 

Those who tell us the republican idea is a failure, do not see the deep gulf between our broad theory and our partial legislation; do not see that our government for the last century has been but a repetition of the old experiments of class and caste.  Hence the failure is not in the principle, but in the lack of virtue on our part to apply it.  The question now is, have we the wisdom and conscience, from the present upheavings of our political system to reconstruct a government on the one enduring basis which never yet has