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4 speechatthe Firstanniversary ofthe american equal rights association:Voices forVotes May 10, 1867 New York, New York The Equal Rights Association was formed to advocate for votes for both African American men and all women on the basis of a belief in universal suffrage. Women’s rights advocates had expected that they, too, would benefit from the drive toward expanding suffrage. When the universal rights strategy faltered in the Reconstruction era, women’s rights reformers began to speak of themselves as a Women’s Suffrage Movement. Emancipation of four million formerly enslaved African Americans completely changed the political dynamic of the nation, and the relationships between abolitionists and women’s rights reformers. African American men and their allies from the abolitionist movement and in the Republican Party saw this time as “the Negro’s hour,” and did not want to risk the opportunity for enfranchisement of African American men by advocating at the same time for votes for women. The Republican Party was the progressive party of its time. It had been more supportive of abolition of slavery and was then more supportive of reconstruction and enfranchising African American men, but not of voting rights for women. At this First Anniversary of the American Equal Rights Association, Rose spoke in a spirited manner, demonstrating a modern awareness of the role of money in American politics. She urged both women and men to raise their voices for women ’s right to vote and called upon men to exercise the moral courage to share voting rights with women. Rose quotes Abraham Lincoln’s famous statement, “A house divided against itself cannot stand” to argue that the nation should be “reconstructed” on a “sound foundation” that included equal rights for all people—blacks and whites, women and men. Rose’s discussion of “a social evil” refers to the dramatic rise that year of “preventing societies” to control prostitution in New York (Gilfoyle 1986). She raises important questions of sexual politics, asking, “Is this the only social evil there is? Are there not many kinds?” She addresses head on the issue of men who hold social power attempting to regulate the behavior of women who remain disenfranchised and asks that woman be given the vote so that she can protect herself. n After all, we come down to the root of all evil— to money. It is rather humiliating, after the discourse that we have just heard, that told us of the rise and progress and destruction of nations, of empires and of republics, that we have to come down to dollars and cents. We live in an entirely 5 practical age. I can show you in a few words that if we only had sufficient of that root of all evil in our hands, there would be no need of holding these meetings. We could obtain the elective franchise without making a single speech. Give us one million of dollars, and we will have the elective franchise at the very next session of our Legislature. (Laughter and applause.) But as we have not got a million of dollars, we want a million of voices. There are always two ways of obtaining an object. If we had had the money, we could have bought the Legislature and the elective franchise long before now. But as we have not, we must create a public opinion, and for that we must have voices. I have always thought I was convinced not only of the necessity but of the great importance of obtaining the elective franchise for woman; but recently I have become convinced that I never felt sufficiently that importance until now. Just read your public papers and see how our Senators and our members of the House are running round through the Southern States to hold meetings, and to deliver public addresses. To whom? To the freedmen. And why now, and why not ten, fifteen, or twenty years ago? Why do they get up meetings for the colored men, and call them fellowmen , brothers, and gentlemen? Because the freedman has that talisman in his hands which the politician is looking after. Don’t you perceive, then, the importance of the elective franchise? Perhaps when we have the elective franchise in our hands, these great senators will condescend to inform us too of the importance of obtaining our rights. You need not be afraid that when woman has the franchise, men will ever disturb her. I presume there are present, as there always are such people...

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