The AWSA supported the amendment, but Lucy Stone, who became its most prominent leader, also made it clear that she believed that suffrage for women would be more beneficial to the country than suffrage for black men.Stanton, Anthony, Gage, Harper (1881–1922), Vol. 2, p. 384. Stone is speaking here during the final AERA convention in 1869. Support for the amendment did not necessarily mean that all AWSA members were free from the racial presumptions of that era. Henry Blackwell, Lucy Stone's husband and a prominent AWSA member, published an open letter to Southern legislatures assuring them that if they allowed both blacks and women to vote, "the political supremacy of your white race will remain unchanged" and that "the black race would gravitate by the law of nature toward the tropics". See Cited in Dudden (2011), p. 93.
The AWSA supported the amendment, but Lucy Stone, who became its most prominent leader, also made it clear that she believed that. suffrage for women would be more beneficial to the country than suffrage for black men.Stanton, Anthony Gage, Harper (1881–1922), Vol. 2, p. 384. Stone is speaking here during the final AERA convention in 1869. Support for the amendment did not necessarily mean that all AWSA members were free from the racial presumptions of that era. Henry Blackwell, ,Lucy Stone's husband and a prominent AWSA member, published an open letter to Southern legislatures assuring them that if they allowed both blacks and women to vote, "the political supremacy of your white race will remain unchanged" and that "the black race would gravitate by the law of nature toward the tropics". See Cited in Dudden (2011), p 93.