information:classification, structural:expansion, linguistic:paraphrasing
American Equal Rights Association

After the Civil War, Stanton and Anthony became alarmed at reports that the proposed Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which would provide citizenship for African Americans, would also for the first time introduce the word "male" into the constitution. Stanton said, "if that word 'male' be inserted, it will take us a century at least to get it out."

Organizing opposition to this development required preparation because the women's movement had become largely inactive during the Civil War. In January 1866, Stanton and Anthony sent out petitions calling for a constitutional amendment providing for women's suffrage, with Stanton's name at the top of the list of signatures. Stanton and Anthony organized the Eleventh National Women's Rights Convention in May 1866, the first since the Civil War began. The convention voted to transform itself into the American Equal Rights Association (AERA), whose purpose was to campaign for the equal rights of all citizens regardless of race or sex, especially the right of suffrage. Stanton was offered the post of president but declined in a favor of Lucretia Mott. Other officers included Stanton as first vice president, Anthony as a corresponding secretary, Frederick Douglass as a vice president, and Lucy Stone as a member of the executive committee. Stanton provided hospitality for some of the attendees at this convention. Sojourner Truth, an abolitionist and women's rights activist who had formerly been enslaved, stayed at Stanton's house as, of course, did Anthony.

Leading abolitionists opposed the AERA's drive for universal suffrage. Horace Greeley, a prominent newspaper editor, told Anthony and Stanton, "This is a critical period for the Republican Party and the life of our Nation... I conjure you to remember that this is 'the negro's hour.'" Abolitionist leaders Wendell Phillips and Theodore Tilton arranged a meeting with Stanton and Anthony, trying to convince them that the time had not yet come for women's suffrage, that they should campaign for voting rights for black men only, not for all African Americans and all women. The two women rejected this guidance and continued to work for universal suffrage.

In 1866, Stanton declared herself a candidate for Congress, the first woman to do so. She said that although she could not vote, there was nothing in the Constitution to prevent her from running for Congress. Running as an independent against both the Democrat and Republican candidates, she received only 24 votes. Her campaign was noted by newspapers as far away as New Orleans.

In 1867, the AERA campaigned in Kansas for referendums that would enfranchise both African Americans and women. Wendell Phillips, who opposed mixing those two causes, blocked the funding that the AERA had expected for their campaign. By the end of summer, the AERA campaign had almost collapsed, and its finances were exhausted.Anthony and Stanton created a storm of controversy by accepting help during the last days of the campaign from George Francis Train, a wealthy businessman who supported women's rights. Train antagonized many activists by attacking the Republican Party and openly disparaging the integrity and intelligence of African Americans. There is reason to believe that Stanton and Anthony hoped to draw the volatile Train away from his cruder forms of racism, and that he had actually begun to do so. In any case, Stanton said she would accept support from the devil himself if he supported women's suffrage.

After the ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment in 1868, a sharp dispute erupted within the AERA over the proposed Fifteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which would prohibit the denial of suffrage because of race. Stanton and Anthony opposed the amendment, which would have the effect of enfranchising black men, insisting that all women and all African Americans should be enfranchised at the same time. Stanton argued in the pages of The Revolution that by effectively enfranchising all men while excluding all women, the amendment would create an "aristocracy of sex," giving constitutional authority to the idea that men were superior to women. Lucy Stone, who was emerging as a leader of those who were opposed to Stanton and Anthony, argued that suffrage for women would be more beneficial to the country than suffrage for black men but supported the amendment, saying, "I will be thankful in my soul if any body can get out of the terrible pit."

During the debate over the Fifteenth Amendment, Stanton wrote articles for The Revolution with language that was elitist and racially condescending. She believed that a long process of education would be needed before many of the former slaves and immigrant workers would be able to participate meaningfully as voters. Stanton wrote, "American women of wealth, education, virtue and refinement, if you do not wish the lower orders of Chinese, Africans, Germans and Irish, with their low ideas of womanhood to make laws for you and your daughters... demand that women too shall be represented in government." In another article, Stanton objected to laws being made for women by "Patrick and Sambo and Hans and Yung Tung who do not know the difference between a Monarchy and a Republic." She also used the term "Sambo" on other occasions, drawing a rebuke from her old friend Frederick Douglass.

Douglass strongly supported women's suffrage but said that suffrage for African Americans was a more urgent issue, literally a matter of life and death. He said that white women already exerted a positive influence on government through the voting power of their husbands, fathers and brothers, and that it "does not seem generous" for Anthony and Stanton to insist that black men should not achieve suffrage unless women achieved it at the same time. Sojourner Truth, on the other hand, supported Stanton's position, saying, "if colored men get their rights, and not colored women theirs, you see the colored men will be masters over the women, and it will be just as bad as it was before."

Early in 1869, Stanton called for a Sixteenth Amendment that would provide suffrage for women, saying, "The male element is a destructive force, stern, selfish, aggrandizing, loving war, violence, conquest, acquisition … in the dethronement of woman we have let loose the elements of violence and ruin that she only has the power to curb."

The AERA increasingly divided into two wings, each advocating universal suffrage but with different approaches. One wing, whose leading figure was Lucy Stone, was willing for black men to achieve suffrage first and wanted to maintain close ties with the Republican Party and the abolitionist movement. The other, whose leading figures were Stanton and Anthony, insisted that all women and all African Americans should be enfranchised at the same time and worked toward a women's movement that would no longer be tied to the Republican Party or be financially dependent on abolitionists. The AERA effectively dissolved after an acrimonious meeting in May 1869, and two competing woman suffrage organizations were created in its aftermath. In the words of one of Stanton's biographers, one consequence of the split for Stanton was that, "Old friends became either enemies, like Lucy Stone, or wary associates, as in the case of Frederick Douglass."