existence. In the winter of 1866–67, Blackwell and Stone lectured together on universal suffrage and formed local Equal Rights Leagues in New York and New Jersey. They also traveled to Washington, D.C., to lobby Charles Sumner against inclusion of the word "male" in the proposed Fourteenth Amendment, which would penalize states for denying black suffrage but not woman suffrage. Unsuccessful in persuading Northern politicians to use this opportunity to extend the franchise to women, Blackwell published an open letter to Southern legislators titled "What the South Can Do," again arguing that woman suffrage was politically expedient no matter a party's (or in this case, a region's) goals or fears. Using estimated figures of a white male and female electorate and a black male and female electorate, he argued that the vote of white Southern women would counterbalance the combined vote of black men and women. In the spring of 1867, the AWSA received an appeal for help from Kansas, where voters would face two suffrage referendums in the fall: one for removing the word "male" from voter qualifications, along with one for removing the word "white." Blackwell and Stone left for Kansas in March and opened the campaign. They canvassed the state for two months, returned east full of optimism, and raised funds to send more speakers and tracts. After their return, Blackwell and Stone also addressed a committee of the Connecticut Legislature in support of removing the word "male" from the state constitution's voter qualifications. Blackwell served a second speaking stint in Kansas in the fall, during which defeat became apparent. Upon his return east, he and Stone turned their full attention to creating a demand for woman suffrage apart from the AERA's call for universal suffrage. After holding a series of woman's rights meetings across New Jersey, they called a state convention to form a state woman suffrage society. The object of the New Jersey Woman Suffrage Association that formed in November 1867 with Lucy Stone as president was to use all available means to secure woman suffrage. At the AERA convention in May 1868, Stone presented two forms of petition to Congress, one for woman suffrage in the District of Columbia and territories, which could be established by an Act of Congress, and the second for a separate woman suffrage amendment to the federal Constitution. As the petitions circulated in both the east and the west during