The American Woman Suffrage Association (AWSA) was formed in November 1869 in response to a split in the American Equal Rights Association over the Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. Its founders, who supported the Fifteenth Amendment, included Lucy Stone and Henry Blackwell. The AWSA founders were staunch abolitionists, and strongly supported securing the right to vote for the Negro. They believed that the Fifteenth Amendment would be in danger of failing to pass in Congress if it included the vote for women. On the other side of the split in the American Equal Rights Association, opposing the Fifteenth Amendment, were "irreconcilables" Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony, who formed the National Woman Suffrage Association (NWSA) to secure women's enfranchisement through a federal constitutional amendment. AWSA believed success could be more easily achieved through state-by-state campaigns.
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