In February 1867, the Kansas legislature passed two amendments. One gave African-American men the vote, the other granted suffrage to all women. Both amendments needed a majority vote from the white male electorate to become law. The election was set for November.

At first, prospects were bright for the passage of both acts, which would make Kansas the first state with "universal suffrage." Women's rights leaders flocked here to join Clarina Nichols, who had laid the groundwork for suffrage a decade earlier.

As the campaign rolled into summer, however, underlying tensions bubbled up. Republican Party leaders, who supported black male suffrage, claimed that the women's suffrage campaign was hurting their cause. This was the "Negro's hour," they declared -- time to enfranchise those men who fought bravely for the Union Army during the Civil War.

The white middle-class supporters of women's suffrage felt betrayed. They had supported antislavery politics even longer than they had agitated for their own rights. They set aside their own agendas during the Civil War with the understanding that afterward, the Republicans would champion their cause. Instead, party leaders told them to wait; worse, they now claimed women's suffrage would undermine the African American cause....