olved the
reconsideration of the fundamental principles of our Government and the
natural rights of man. The nation's heart was thrilled with prolonged
debates in Congress and State legislatures, in the pulpits and public
journals, and at every fireside on these vital questions, which took
final shape in the three historic amendments to the Constitution.

The first point, his emancipation, settled, the political status of the
negro was next in order; and to this end various propositions were
submitted to Congress. But to demand his enfranchisement on the broad
principle of natural rights was hedged about with difficulties, as the
logical result of such action must be the enfranchisement of all
ostracized classes; not only the white women of the entire country, but
the slave women of the South. Though our senators and representatives
had an honest aversion to any proscriptive legislation against loyal
women, in view of their varied and self-sacrificing work during the War,
yet the only way they could open the constitutional door just wide
enough to let the black man pass in was to introduce the word "male"
into the national Constitution. After the generous devotion of such
women as Anna Carroll and Anna Dickinson in sustaining the policy of the
Republicans, both in peace and war, they felt it would come with a bad
grace from that party to place new barriers in woman's path to freedom.
But how could the amendment be written without the word "male," was the
question.

Robert Dale Owen being at Washington, and behind the scenes at the time,
sent copies of the various bills to the officers of the Loyal League, in
New York, and related to us some of the amusing discussions. One of the
committee proposed "persons" instead of "males." "That will never do,"
said another, "it would enfranchise wenches." "Suffrage for black men
will be all the strain the Republican party can stand," said another.
Charles Sumner said, years afterward, that he wrote over nineteen pages
of foolscap to get rid of the word "male" and yet keep "negro suffrage"
as a party measure intact; but it could not be done.

Miss Anthony and I were the first to see the full significance of the
word "male" in the Fourteenth Amendment, and we at once sounded the
alarm, and sent out petitions for a constitutional amendment to
"prohibit the States from disfranchising any of their citizens on the
ground of sex." Miss Anthony, who had spent the year in Kansas, started