Unwilling to accept her explanation and calling it unreliable, he continued his complaints until interrupted by Henry Blackwell who corroborated Susan's statement, adding that she had refused the $1,000 due her because of the dissatisfaction expressed over her management. Declaring himself completely satisfied with the settlement and confident of the purity of Susan's motives even if some of her expenditures were unwise, Henry Blackwell continued, "I will agree that many unwise things have been written in The Revolution by a gentleman who furnished part of the means by which the paper has been carried on. But that gentleman has withdrawn, and you, who know the real opinions of Miss Anthony and Mrs. Stanton on the question of Negro suffrage, do not believe that they mean to create antagonism between the Negro and woman question...."
To Susan's great relief Henry Blackwell's explanation satisfied the delegates, who gave her and Mrs. Stanton a vote of confidence. Not so easily healed, however, were the wounds left by the accusations of mismanagement and dishonesty.
The atmosphere was still tense, for differences of opinion on policy remained. Most of the old reliable workers stood unequivocally for the Fifteenth Amendment, which they regarded as the crowning achievement of the antislavery movement, and they heartily disapproved of forcing the issue of woman suffrage on Congress and the people at this time. Although they had been deeply moved by the suffering of Negro women under slavery and had used this as a telling argument for emancipation, they now gave no thought to Negro women, who, even more than Negro men, needed the vote to safeguard their rights. Believing with the Republicans that one reform at a time was all they could expect, they did not want to hear one word about woman suffrage or a Sixteenth Amendment until male Negroes were safely enfranchised by the Fifteenth Amendment.
Offering a resolution endorsing the Fifteenth Amendment, Frederick Douglass quoted Julia Ward Howe as saying, "I am willing that the Negro shall get the ballot before me," and he added, "I cannot see how anyone can pretend that there is the same urgency in giving the ballot to women as to the Negro."
Quick as a flash, Susan was on her feet, challenging his statements, and as the dauntless champion of women debated the question with the dark-skinned fiery Negro, the friendship and warm affection built up between them over the years occasionally shone through the sharp words they spoke to each other.
"The old antislavery school says that women must stand back," declared Susan, "that they must wait until male Negroes are voters. But we say, if you will not give the whole loaf of justice to an entire people, give it to the most intelligent first."
Here she was greeted with applause and continued, "If intelligence, justice, and morality are to be placed in the government, then let the question of woman be brought up first and that of the Negro last.... Mr. Douglass talks about the wrongs of the Negro, how he is hunted down ..., but with all the wrongs and outrages that he today suffers, he would not exchange his sex and take the place of Elizabeth Cady Stanton."
"I want to know," shouted Frederick Douglass, "if granting you the right of suffrage will change the nature of our sexes?"
"It will change the pecuniary position of woman," Susan retorted before the shouts of laughter had died down. "She will not be compelled to take hold of only such employments as man chooses for her."
Lucy Stone, who so often in her youth had pleaded with Susan and Frederick Douglass for both the Negro and women, now entered the argument. She had matured, but her voice had lost none of its conviction or its power to sway an audience. Disagreeing with Douglass's assertion that Negro suffrage was more urgent than woman suffrage, she pointed out that white women of the North were robbed of their children by the law just as Negro women had been by slavery.