p and therefore
there was no way for them to vote their organization into an Equal
Rights Association. Not to be sidetracked, she then asked the woman's
rights convention to broaden its platform to include rights for the
Negro. To her this seemed a natural development as she had always
thought of woman's rights as part of the larger struggle for human
rights.

"For twenty years," she declared, "we have pressed the claims of women
to the right of representation in the government.... Up to this hour
we have looked only to State action for the recognition of our rights;
but now by the results of the war, the whole question of suffrage
reverts back to the United States Constitution. The duty of Congress
at this moment is to declare what shall be the basis of representation
in a republican form of government.

"There is, there can be, but one true basis," she continued. "Taxation
and representation must be inseparable; hence our demand must now go
beyond woman.... We therefore wish to broaden our woman's rights
platform and make it in name what it has ever been in spirit, a human
rights platform."[178]

The women, so often accused in later years of fighting only for their
own rights, had the courage at this time to attempt a practical
experiment in generosity. Susan and Mrs. Stanton with all their hearts
wanted this experiment to succeed, and yet as they resolved their
woman's rights organization into the American Equal Rights
Association, they were apprehensive.

They did not have to wait long for disillusionment. Meeting Wendell
Phillips and Theodore Tilton in the office of the _Antislavery
Standard_ to plan a campaign for the Equal Rights Association, they
discussed with them what should be done in New York, preparatory to
the revision of the state constitution. Emphatically Wendell Phillips
declared that the time was ripe for striking the word "white" out of
the constitution, but not the word "male." That could come, he added,
when the constitution was next revised, some twenty or thirty years
later. To their astonishment, Theodore Tilton heartily agreed. Then he
added, "The question of striking out the word 'male,' we as an equal
rights association shall of course present as an intellectual theory,
but not as a practical thing to be accomplished at this convention."
Completely unprepared for such an attitude on Tilton's part, Susan
retorted with indignation, "I would sooner cut off my right hand than
ask for the b