Elizabeth Cady Stanton in the United States

Life and Work (1815-1902)

STANTON, Elizabeth Cady, American reformer: b. Johnstown, N. Y., 12 Nov. 1815; d. New York, 26 Oct. 1902. She was graduated from Emma Willard Seminary, Troy, N. Y., in 1832 and was married to Henry Brewster Stanton (q.v.) in 1840. Her attention was first attracted to the disabilities of her sex when at 15 she was prepared to enter college and found none in which she could obtain the education which her brothers received. She afterward studied Blackstone, Story and Kent, and while in London, in 1847, met Lucretia Mott, with whom in the following year she issued the first call for a woman-suffrage convention to be held in her home at Seneca Falls. From that time her career was one long struggle for equal rights for both sexes. The general principles for which she strove were equal educational advantages, equal rights of suffrage and of property, and more intelligent divorce laws. She addressed the New York legislature on the rights of married women in 1854 and again in 1860, advocating divorce for drunkenness. In 1866, she offered herself as a congressional candidate and for 25 years annually addressed congressional committees in the endeavor to gain a constitutional amendment granting enlarged privileges to women. She was president of the Women’s Loyal League in 1861 and of the National Woman Suffrage Association in 1865-93. She traveled and lectured in all parts of the United States and also made addresses in England, Scotland and France. Throughout her entire career, Mrs. Stanton’s personal life was a model of the fulfilment of the duties of a wife and mother, her public career never operating to the neglect of her social and home life.

While the changes which have been wrought cannot definitely be declared the result of the exertions of Mrs. Stanton and her immediate associates, a great change certainly came about in her lifetime. The education within the reach of her brothers but unattainable for herself in her girlhood is now within the reach of any determined girl, and the changes in legislation are even more noticeable. The laws which placed a woman’s property absolutely at her husband’s disposal have been replaced by those which give her equal rights with him, or possibly superior, since the law recognizes no claim on the woman for family support, and her earnings are her own. Her intellect, energy and perseverance, and her womanly traits made her generally respected, and she is rightfully regarded as the mother of the movement. She presided over the first International Council of Women held in Washington in 1888, was one of the founders and afterward editor of The Revolution, and a frequent contributor to English and American magazines. She published ‘Eighty Years and More’ (1895); and was joint author of ‘The History of Woman Suffrage’ (1881-86) and edited ‘The Woman’s Bible’ (1895). [1]

According to the Encyclopedia of the American Constitution, Elizabeth Cady was born in Johnstown, New York, to Daniel Cady, influential legal reformer, and Margaret Livingston Cady, from one of the state’s oldest landed families. She received the best education available to young women, at Emma Willard’s Troy Academy.

Speech by Elizabeth Cady Stanton on Woman’s Rights (September 1848)

Ladies and gentlemen, when invited some weeks ago to address you I proposed to a gentleman of this village to review our report of the Seneca Falls convention and give his objections to our Declaration, resolutions and proceedings to serve me as a text on which to found an address for this evening “the gentleman did so, but his review was so laconic that there was the same difficulty in replying to it as we found in replying to a recent sermon preached at Seneca Falls—there was nothing of it.

Should that gentleman be present this evening and feel disposed to give any of his objections to our movement, we will be most happy to answer him.

I should feel exceedingly diffident to appear before you wholly unused as I am to public speaking, were I not nerved by a sense of right and duty—did I not feel that the time had fully come for the question of woman’s wrongs to be laid before the public—did I not believe that woman herself must do this work—for woman alone can understand the height and the depth, the length and the breadth of her own degradation and woe. Man cannot speak for us—because he has been educated to believe that we differ from him so materially, that he cannot judge of our thoughts, feelings and opinions by his own. Moral beings can only judge of others by themselves—the moment they give a different nature to any of their own kind they utterly fail. The drunkard was hopelessly lost until it was discovered that he was governed by the same laws of mind as the sober man. Then with what magic power, by kindness and love, was he raised from the slough of despond and placed rejoicing on high land. Let a man once settle the question that woman does not think and feel like himself and he may as well undertake to judge of the amount of intellect and sensation of any of the animal creation as of woman’s nature. He can know but little with certainty, and that but by observation.

Among the many important questions which have been brought before the public, there is none that more vitally affects the whole human family than that which is technically termed Woman’s rights. Every allusion to the degraded and inferior position occupied by woman all over the world, has ever been met by scorn and abuse. From the man of highest mental cultivation, to the most degraded wretch who staggers in the streets do we hear ridicule and coarse jests, freely bestowed upon those who dare assert that woman stands by the side of man—his equal, placed here by her God to enjoy with him the beautiful earth, which is her home as it is his—having the same sense of right and wrong and looking to the same Being for guidance and support. So long has man exercised a tyranny over her injurious to himself and benumbing to her faculties, that but few can nerve themselves against the storm, and so long has the chain been about her that however galling it may be she knows not there is a remedy.

The present social, civil and religious condition of women is a subject too vast to be brought within the limits of one short lecture. Suffice it to say for the present, that wherever we turn the history of woman is sad and drear and dark, without any alleviating circumstances, nothing from which we can draw consolation. As the nations of the earth emerge from a state of barbarism, the sphere of woman gradually becomes wider but not even under what is thought to be the full blaze of the sun of civilization is it what God designed it to be. In every country and clime does man assume the responsibility of marking out the path for her to tread,—in every country does he regard her as a being inferior to himself and one whom he is to guide and controul. From the Arabian Kerek whose wife is obliged to steal from her Husband to supply the necessities of life,—from the Mahometan who forbids pigs dogs women and other impure animals to enter a mosque, and does not allow a fool, madman or women to proclaim the hour of prayer,—from the German who complacently smokes his meerschaum while his wife, yoked with the ox draws the plough through its furrow,—from the delectable gentleman who thinks an inferior style of conversation adapted to women—to the legislator who considers her incapable of saying what laws shall govern her, is this same feeling manifested.3 In all eastern countries she is a mere slave bought and sold at pleasure. There are many differences in habits, manners, and customs, among the heathen nations of the old world, but there is little change for the better in woman’s lot—she is either the drudge of man to perform all the hard labour of the field and the menial duties of the hut, tent, or house, or she is the idol of his lust the mere creature of his ever varying whims and will. Truly has she herself said in her best estate,

I am a slave, a favoured slave
At best to share his pleasure and seem very blest,
When weary of these fleeting charms and me,
There yawns the sack and yonder rolls the sea,
What! am I then a toy for dotards play
To wear but till the gilding frets away?

In christian countries, boasting a more advanced state of civilization and refinement, woman still holds a position infinitely inferior to man. In France the Salic law (Note: By the Salic law, females were excluded from the line of succession to the throne of Spain and France) tells much although it is said that woman there has ever had great influence in all political revolutions. In England she seems to have advanced a little— There she has a right to the throne, and is allowed to hold some other offices and some women have a right to vote too— But in the United States of America6 woman has no right either to hold office, nor to the elective franchise, we stand at this moment, unrepresented in this government—our rights and interests wholly overlooked.

Let us now glance at some of the popular objections to this whole question. There is a class of men who believe in the natural inborn, inbred superiority both in body and mind and their full complete Heaven descended right to lord it over the fish of the sea, the fowl of the air, the beast of the field and last tho’ not least the immortal being called woman. I would recommend this class to the attentive perusal of their Bibles—to historical research, to foreign travel—to a closer observation of the manifestations of mind about them and to an humble comparison of themselves with such women as Catharine of Russia, Elizabeth of England distinguished for their statesmanlike qualities, Harriet Martineau and Madame de Stael for their literary attainments, or Caroline Herschel and Mary Summerville for their scientific researches, or for physical equality to that whole nation of famous women the Amazones.8 We seldom find this class of objectors among liberally educated persons, who have had the advantage of observing their race in different countries, climes, and under different phases, but barbarians tho’ they be in entertaining such an opinion—they must be met and fairly vanquished.

Elizabeth Cady Stanton in the U.S. Legal History

Summary

Organizer of the first women’s rights convention in Seneca Falls, New York, in 1848, Stanton led the struggle for woman suffrage.

Resources

Notes

Main Source: Encyclopædia Britannica (1922)

Elizabeth Cady Stanton