This new approach included shedding the traditional association of women's rights with the rights of blacks. Indeed, though the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA) never stopped using natural rights arguments for woman suffrage, white suffragists--still indignant that black men were enfranchised ahead of them and angry at the ease with which immigrant men were enfranchised--drifted away from insistence upon universal suffrage and increasingly employed racist and nativist rhetoric and tactics. Using a strategy first suggested by Henry Blackwell, northern and southern leaders began to argue that woman suffrage--far from endangering white supremacy in the South--could be a means of restoring it. Indeed, they suggested, the adoption of woman suffrage with educational or property qualifications that would disqualify most black women, would allow the South to restore white supremacy in politics without "having to" disfranchise black men and risk Congressional repercussions. “As the end of the nineteenth century approached, American women were still struggling to gain their full rights as citizens-including the franchise. They sought this reform even as a wave of reaction swept the nation on the issue of who should vote-a wave of reaction particularly obvious in the American South. As a result, many white suffragists adopted arguments calculated to promote woman suffrage as consistent with, rather than opposed to, white supremacy”.
The tactics the suffragist regressed to were, in one way, designed to play on the racism and nativism already present within middle class values in early twentieth century America. Suffragists argued that giving the vote to white, native-born women would ensure that the whites would retain their majority while other races and ethnic groups would be disenfranchised. The belief that enfranchised white women would defend white supremacy and middle class hegemony led some suffragists to make the movement an instrument for preserving dominant class and racial privileges. To retain political support, suffragists refused to address the question of black political rights. Suffrage leaders eventually won the support of the Progressive Party, but knew that they would have to win the support of the conservatives to have any hope of getting legislature in their favor passed. Hence, they narrowed the suffrage platform to include only upper class white women.
“Historians of the American woman suffrage movement have advanced many theories concerning the extent to which white suffragists used racist arguments and the relationship between national leaders and southern leaders in regard to developing and implementing a strategy that would aid their cause in turn-of-the-century America-an era widely regarded as the ‘nadir’ of race relations in the United States. Yet it was inevitable that race would play a crucial role in the movement’s history as late nineteenth-century NAWAS leaders struggled to build a truly national midst of a regional movement to restore white political supremacy.” One could easily argue that all moves for political power come at the expense of other groups, and this may be true. Women’s suffrage, however, often escapes the critical eye that other political movements have been subjected to. The movement has been grossly over-simplified, and many of the complex issues within the movement have been ignored. Americans often think that any movement that grants political power is a positive act. The blatant racism and classism practiced by some of the suffrage leaders leaves one feeling that the movement was void of many ideals.
Almost every group on the bottom tries to push down the group above them. This competition for the bottom rung of the ladder leads to the formation of factions and contributed to the racism seen in the women’s suffrage movement. As non-voters, women faced a tremendous task in convincing the entire white legislature to push for the female vote. Politicians were interested in gaining favor with those who could vote. If women could not vote, their concerns and opinions were not of much value to the legislatures. In order to increase the importance of their cause, women resorted to appealing to the white leaders through a less than democratic avenue. The women’s movement began with a genuine push to obtain universal suffrage. Reality soon squished many suffrage leaders’ hopes that suffrage would be granted for everyone. By turning to racism, suffrage leaders admitted that America was an imperfect place and the democracy that set America apart from many other countries did not mean that America was fair and just.
By 1903, however, it was clear that this southern strategy had failed; the region's politicians refused cower behind petticoats and use women to maintain white supremacy--and found other means to do so that did not involve the "destruction" of woman's traditional role. “Nor is it surprising that some southern suffragists proved to be quite reluctant to acknowledge the defeat of this ‘southern strategy’ that gained from them strong national support and once seemed so promising as a means of prying woman suffrage out of southern legislators, unmoved by arguments based on justice and equality. Not for many decades-and not before the development of a very different context in the wake of the civil rights movement-did the majority of American feminists seem to agree that ‘no women are free until all are free.”
The final chapter in the suffrage story was still ahead: thirty-six states had to ratify the amendment before it could become law. As the struggle over ratification began, Illinois and Wisconsin competed for the honor of the being the first to ratify, while Georgia and Alabama scrambled to be the first to pass a "rejection resolution." By the summer of 1920, suffragists were dismayed to find that while only one more state was needed, no further legislative sessions were scheduled before the November 1920 election. Desperate, suffragists began pleading for special sessions. President Wilson was finally able to pressure the reluctant governor of Tennessee into calling such a session.
Thus the final battle over woman suffrage took place in Nashville, Tennessee in summer of 1920. In that final, dramatic contest, anti-suffragists as well as suffragists from all over the nation descended upon the state in a bitter struggle over ideology and influence. Despite the glare of national publicity, the suffragists watched with dismay as a comfortable margin in favor of ratification gradually disappeared, and they were quite uncertain of the result when the vote took place. Finally, Tennessee reaffirmed its vote for ratification, and the Nineteenth Amendment was officially added to the United States Constitution on August 26, 1920.
Work Citied
Baker, Jean H. “Race, Reform, and Reaction at the Turn of the Century”. Marjorie
Julian Spruill, Votes for Women. New York, 2002.
“Race, Reform, and Reaction at the Turn of the Century”, Marjorie Julian Spruill, Votes for Women, Jean H. Baker, New York, 2002.
“Race, Reform, and Reaction at the Turn of the Century”, Marjorie Julian Spruill, Votes for Women, Jean H. Baker, New York, 2002.
“Race, Reform, and Reaction at the Turn of the Century”, Marjorie Julian Spruill, Votes for Women, Jean H. Baker, New York, 2002.
