Pros And Cons Of The Fifteenth Amendment

The passage of the fifteenth Amendment to the Constitution was viewed by some as a blessing and a curse. I would have sided with the National Woman Suffrage Association who did not support the passage of the Fifteenth Amendment. The Fifteenth Amendment is the constitutional amendment that was ratified in 1869 that forbade states to deny citizens the right to vote on grounds of race, color,or “previous condition of servitude.” I would have sided with the National Woman Suffrage Association because Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony believed that instead of supporting the Fifteenth Amendment as it was, women’s rights activists should fight for women to be included as well. The National Woman Suffrage Association was a suffrage group

In fact, it is better to be the slave of an educated white man, than of a degraded, ignorant black one.”(Stanton) Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony believed that if they were not guaranteed their rights then their emancipation which was the effort to secure equal rights and to remove gender discrimination from laws, institutions, and behavioral patterns, was just another form of slavery but worse than being a slave to an educated white

“She declared that the vote was implied right under the Constitution, by virtue of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments.” (Victoria C. Woodhull) After this statement Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony invited her to speak at a convention of the National Woman Suffrage Association. They believed that since the Fifteenth Amendment stated that the states couldn’t deny citizens the right to vote on the grounds of race then women should be able to vote as well because “Women, white and black, belong to races, although to different races. A race of people comprises all the people, male and female. The right to vote cannot be denied on account of race. All people included in the term race have the right to vote, unless otherwise prohibited.” (Victoria C.