page_title: Women's Loyal National League
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Women's Loyal National League / History
caption_attribution_description: English: Petition created by Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton for the petition drive organized by the Woman's Loyal National League in 1863 and 1864. It was the largest petition drive in the nation's history up to that point, collecting 400,000 signatures. The bottom part of this image was cropped from the original because it was difficult to read and mostly irrelevant except for the following text that had been added at the very bottom: citation: "To the Women of the Republic," address from the Women's Loyal National League supporting the abolition of slavery, January 25, 1864, SEN 38A-H20 (Kansas folder); RG 46, Records of the U.S. Senate, National Archives.
context_page_description: The Women's Loyal National League, also known as the Woman's National Loyal League and other variations of that name, was formed on May 14, 1863, to campaign for an amendment to the U.S. Constitution that would abolish slavery. It was organized by Elizabeth Cady Stanton, its president, and Susan B. Anthony, its secretary. In the largest petition drive in the nation's history up to that time, the League collected nearly 400,000 signatures on petitions to abolish slavery and presented them to Congress. Its petition drive significantly assisted the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment, which ended slavery in the U.S. The League disbanded in August 1864 after it became clear that the amendment would be approved.
  The League was the first national women's political organization in the United States. It marked a continuation of the shift of women's activism from moral suasion to political action, and from a women's movement that was loosely structured to one that was more formally organized. It also contributed to the development of a new generation of leaders and activists for the women's movement.
context_section_description: The Women's Loyal National League was formed on May 14, 1863, in New York City to organize support for an amendment to the U.S. Constitution that would abolish slavery.
  The country was in the midst of the American Civil War at the time, with slavery a key issue.
  Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony organized the League's founding convention.
  Both Stanton and Anthony are better known as campaigners for women's rights, but the leaders of the women's movement had agreed to suspend activity of that type during the Civil War and to focus instead on the fight against slavery. 
  abolitionist work was already familiar to Anthony, who had previously worked as a paid representative of the American Anti-Slavery Society,
  and to Stanton, whose husband had worked for the same organization.
  The League's name signaled its alignment with the effort to encourage loyalty to the Union during the Civil War by creating organizations called Union Leagues or Loyal Leagues.
  The Emancipation Proclamation, which freed slaves in states that were in rebellion but not elsewhere, in some cases led abolitionists and their opponents to become involved in this movement in different ways.  Conservatives in New York State, accommodating those who believed the Emancipation Proclamation was unconstitutional, formed an organization called the Loyal League of Union Citizens with the carefully worded purpose of supporting "the government in all its constitutional efforts to suppress the rebellion."
  A group of abolitionists that included Henry B. Stanton, husband of Elizabeth Cady Stanton, formed a rival organization called the Loyal National League, which supported the emancipation of slaves in all states.  Encouraged by their male abolitionist colleagues and relatives, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony created an organization that resembled the Loyal National League in both name and purpose but with a feminist perspective.
  Stanton and Anthony laid the groundwork for the new organization by publishing an "Appeal to the Women of the Republic" in the New York Tribune, an influential newspaper that opposed slavery, and circulating a tract that contained the appeal and the call to the convention. 
  Anthony opened the convention and nominated Lucy Stone, a prominent women's rights activist, as president of the meeting. Stanton gave the opening address. Other officers of the convention included well-known figures in the women's movement like Martha Coffin Wright, Amy Post, Antoinette Brown Blackwell, Ernestine Rose, and Angelina Grimké Weld.
  Anthony introduced several resolutions with a short speech that began, "There is great fear expressed on all sides lest this shall be made a war for the negro.  I am willing that it shall be.  It is a war which was begun to found an empire upon slavery, and shame on us if we do not make it one to establish the freedom of the negro...  Instead of suppressing the real cause of the war, it should have been proclaimed not only by the people but by the President, Congress, Cabinet and every military commander."
  One of the resolutions she introduced read, "There can never be true peace in this republic until the civil and political rights of all citizens of African descent and all Women are practically established" 
  Some attendees opposed the resolution because it introduced the issue of women's rights, which they thought was divisive and not relevant to the goals of the organization.  It was adopted by a large majority, however.
  Stanton was elected as president of the League and Anthony as its secretary. 
  Its office was located in the newly established Cooper Union in New York City.
  Using contacts developed by Stanton and Anthony through their previous work in the abolitionist and women's movements, the League launched a massive petition drive that gathered nearly 400,000 signatures calling for the U.S. Congress to pass an amendment that would abolish slavery.
  The largest petition campaign in the nation's history up to that time, it gathered signatures from approximately one out every twenty-four adults in the Northern 
caption: One of the petitions collected by the League
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