Suffragists were not united in support of a federal amendment. The National Woman Suffrage Association was founded May 15, 1869, with the object of promoting a sixteenth amendment to enfranchise women. Another organization known as the American Woman Suffrage Association was formed in November, 1870, to get suffrage through amendments to the state constitutions. In 1890 the two groups united as the National American Woman Suffrage Association following both the state and federal amendment methods. Leaders of the movement were convinced that they could not hope for action by Congress until several states had experimented with woman suffrage. Alabama suffragists tried both the state and federal amendment methods of gaining equal suffrage. They failed to achieve their aim in either case. This paper attempts to tell the story of those failures.