The premise of this dissertation is that the political literature and rhetoric of the two opposing sides (femininism and anti-femininism) in the struggle over the recognition and advancement of the rights of women in America illuminate the existence of at least two traditions of American political thought and practice. These two traditions are based on distinct epistemological premises about how an object or person is considered to be known. The epistemological categories explicated by F. S. C. Northrop ("concepts by postulation" and "concepts by intuition") and two of the categories of legal and ethical views developed by Northrop ("abstract contractual" and "natural history") provide the framework within which feminist and antifeminist political literature and rhetoric are examined. It is argued that feminism is informed by an abstract contractual legal and ethical view based on a postulational epistemology which considers the truly known individual to be an instance of deductively postulated universal laws. Anti-feminism is argued to be informed by a natural history legal and ethical view based on an intuitional epistemology which considers the truly known individual to be as given by the senses (which are informed in what is directly observed by customs and tradition). The distinct epistemological premises of feminists and anti-feminists and their divergent legal and ethical views are shown to inform and structure their positions on the issues of political authority and political membership, equality of rights before the law, and of the status of woman as a distinct and individual person. It is demonstrated that feminists define women as autonomous individual persons who are, for political and legal purposes, essentially similar to men. Thus, political authority relations, political membership, and rights before the law must recognize the equality, individuality, and autonomy of each person. Anti-feminists are shown to define women by their reproductive difference from men and to argue that men and women are, thus, essentially dissimilar. Woman, by nature, belongs in a family headed by man, which family is the unit of society and polity. Woman's rights and her relation to the polity are directly linked to her nature as mother-wife.

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This study offers a concentrated view of how a national movement developed networks from the grassroots up and how regional identity can influence national campaign strategies by examining the roles Texas and Texans played in the woman suffrage movement in the United States. The interest that multiple generations of national woman suffrage leaders showed in Texas, from Reconstruction through the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment, provides new insights into the reciprocal nature of national movements. Increasingly, from 1868 to 1920, a bilateral flow of resources existed between national women's rights leaders and woman suffrage activists in Texas. Additionally, this study nationalizes the woman suffrage movement earlier than previously thought. Cross-regional woman suffrage activity has been marginalized by the belief that campaigning in the South did not exist or had not connected with the national associations until the 1890s. This closer examination provides a different view. Early woman's rights leaders aimed at a nationwide movement from the beginning. This national goal included the South, and woman suffrage interest soon spread to the region. One of the major factors in this relationship was that the primarily northeastern-based national leadership desperately needed southern support to aid in their larger goals. Texas' ability to conform and make the congruity politically successful eventually helped the state become one of NAWSA's few southern stars. National leaders believed the state was of strategic importance because Texas activists continuously told them so by emphasizing their promotion of women's rights. Tremendously adding credibility to these claims was the sheer number of times Texas legislators introduced woman suffrage resolutions over the course of more than fifty years. This happened during at least thirteen sessions of the Texas legislature, including two of the three post-Civil War constitutional conventions. This larger pattern of interdependency often culminated in both sides-the Texas and national organizations-believing that the other was necessary for successful campaigning at the state, regional, and national levels.