Stanton, Elizabeth Cady

[In 1862] Elizabeth Cady Stanton initiated the call for a women's rights convention. From that meeting at Seneca Falls, on 19-20 July 1848, women issued the demand that their sacred right to the elective franchise be recognized. They wrote a Declaration of Sentiments and resolutions, arguing that consistency with the fundamental principles of the American Revolution required an end to women's taxation without representation and government without their consent. It accused men of usurping divine power and denying women their consciences by dictating the proper sphere of womankind. To illustrate women's disabilities under the law, the authors echoed attacks by legal reformers on English common law, particularly the principle that a woman lost her individual identity and rights when she married. The largest group at the 1848 meeting were antislavery Quakers from Rochester and Waterloo, New York, dissidents in the Society of Friends who were establishing the Congregational (later Progressive) Friends. Among them the convention's message found its strongest support, at a second convention in Rochester a few weeks later, in a modest petition campaign for woman suffrage late in 1848, and in the yearly meetings of Progressive Friends thereafter. Decades later Stanton wrote that advocacy of suffrage for women met resistance and that Frederick Douglass helped her to sway the crowd in its favor. Though nothing in the contemporary record confirms that story, the opposition of Friends and Garrisonians to voting could explain why participants doubted the importance of suffrage.

Stanton, Elizabeth Cady, reformer, born in Johnstown, N. Y., Nov. 12. 1815: died in New- York city, Oct. 26, 1902. She was the daughter of Daniel Cady and widow of Henry B. Stanton. (For a sketch of Mr. Stanton's life, see Annual Cyclopaedia for 1887, page 613.) She was graduated at Johnstown Academy and at Emma Willard's Seminary in 1832, and was married in 1840. In 1840 she removed to Seneca Falls, N. Y., and two years later she issued a call for the first woman's congress and began the woman-suffrage movement. She addressed the New York Legislature on the rights of married women in 1854, and in advocacy of divorce for drunkenness in 1860. In 1866, believing women to be eligible for public office, she offered herself as a candidate for Congress. For twenty-five years she annually addressed a congressional committee in favor of an amendment to the Federal Constitution granting enlarged privileges to women. Mrs. Stanton was president of the National Woman Suffrage Association in 1865-‘93, and honorary president of the Woman's Loyal League in 1861. In 1868, with Susan H. Anthony and Parker Pillsbury, she established a periodical entitled The Revolution, which was discontinued a few years later. Among her publications were The History of Woman Suffrage (with Susan B. Anthony and Matilda Joslyn Gage); Eighty Years and More (1895); and (with others) The Woman's Bible (1895).

STANTON, Elizabeth Cady, reformer, was born at Johnstown, N. Y., Nov. 12, 1815…In 1840 she married Henry B. Stanton, already well known as a leader and lecturer in the anti-slavery movement. Mr. Stanton being a delegate to the "World's Anti-Slavery convention" held in London in June, 1840, they went to that city on their wedding trip. Here her indignation was stirred anew by the imputation of inferiority cast upon women by the refusal to admit Mrs. Mott and other American women who had been regularly appointed delegates. In Mrs. Mott she met for the first time a liberal-minded thinker among her own sex, and the friendship thus begun continued through forty years, and assisted in determining Mrs. Stanton to devote her life and energies to the social, political and moral elevation of women…In 1846 she removed to Seneca Falls, and, with Mrs. Mott and others, issued the call for the first Woman's Rights convention. It was held at Seneca Falls July 19 and 20, 1848, and inaugurated the woman-suffrage movement. Though in her call she defined the object of the convention to be the discussion of the social, civil and religious rights of women, and made no allusion to women's political rights, yet in her declaration of sentiments, which she prepared as a basis for discussion, she declared it to be the duty of "women of this country to secure to themselves their sacred right to the elective franchise," which, has ever since been the keynote of the movement. Neither her husband, who had prepared for the convention an abstract of the laws bearing unjustly against the property interests of women, nor Mrs. Mott, who was the ruling spirit of the occasion, approved of Mrs. Stanton's demand for the ballot, and argued that it would only bring ridicule on the cause. Mrs. Stanton persisted, however, and spoke vigorously and eloquently in [defence] of her course, with the result that her declaration and resolutions in detail were adopted by the convention. This new departure of the movement had no sympathizers outside the convention, and of those members who signed, many requested later to have their names withdrawn. Judge Cady, alarmed at his daughter's radicalism, hastened to her home, where he labored anxiously with her, but in vain, to change her convictions. In 1850 Miss Anthony became Mrs. Stanton's associate laborer in reform — the former managing affairs, the latter writing — each supplementing the work of the other, and both laboring with unselfish ambition and enthusiasm for the cause of woman's rights. Whatever may have been imprudent in their utterances, or impolitic in their methods, their motives have always been the result of the highest moral regard for woman's advancement socially and morally. For forty years they have been co-workers and devoted friends, and likened to the two sticks of a drum in keeping up the "rub-a-dub of agitation." Mrs. Stanton has lectured widely to secure the abolition of laws unjust to her sex: she has also frequently addressed state legislatures, asking for changes in the laws relating to intemperance, education, divorce, slavery and suffrage. Her declaration was modeled after Jefferson's declaration of independence, and constituted the first public demand on record for woman suffrage, and she may be considered the originator of the movement. In 1806, believing women to be eligible to public office, though denied the elective franchise, she offered herself as a candidate for congress from the eighth New York district. In her announcement she said: "Belonging to a disfranchised class, I have no political antecedents to recommend me to your support; but my creed is free speech, free press, free men, and free trade — the cardinal points of democracy." She received twenty-four votes. With Miss Anthony and Parker Pillsbury she established and edited in New York the woman's rights journal, called the "Revolution.”…She has resided for many years at Tenafly, N. J., where her home has been an attractive social centre. Her ready wit and good nature, her sympathy with the oppressed, her scorn of wrong, her charity, her love for justice and liberty, her intellectual ability and moral energy, give this woman, admirable in character and life, a unique place in the history of American women. Like Daniel O'Connell, it has been her custom to claim everything for her sex, in order to obtain something; and in devoting her life to securing for women the elective franchise, she has sought to preserve to them all their womanliness, the possibility of which is best illustrated in her own life.

STANTON, Elizabeth Cady, reformer, was born in Johnstown, N.Y., Nov. 12, 1815; daughter of Judge Daniel Cady (q. v.) and Margaret (Livingston) Cady; and granddaughter of Col. James Livingston (q. v.).   She was graduated from Johnstown academy, taking the second prize in Greek, in 1829, and from Mrs. Emma Willard's seminary, Troy, N.Y., in 1832.  She subsequently read law in her father's office, also acting as his amanuensis, and through this environment became interested in obtaining equal laws for women.   She was married, May 1, 1840, to Henry Brewster Stanton (q.v.), whom she accompanied to the World's Anti-Slavery convention at London, England, participating in the debate in regard to the admission of women as delegates to the convention.  While abroad, she formed a friendship with Mrs. Lucretia Mott (q. v.), with whom she issued the call for the first woman's rights convention, held in Seneca Falls, N.Y., July 19-20, 1848, and which, after long and bitter opposition, inaugurated the woman suffrage movement.  In the same year she secured the passage of her "married woman's property bill," and in 1854 addressed both houses of the New York legislature on the unjust laws for women.  She again addressed the legislature in 1860, by request, advocating divorce for drunkenness, and in 1867 urged upon the legislature and the state constitutional convention the right of women to vote. She subsequently canvassed numerous states in behalf of woman suffrage; was; a candidate for representative in the U.S. congress in 1868, and from 1868 annually appeared before a committee of congress, advocating a 16th amendment to the constitution of the United States, granting suffrage to women.  She resided in Tenafly, N.J., 1870-90, and subsequently in New York city.  She was the mother of Daniel Cady Stanton, Louisiana state senator, 1870; Henry Stanton (Columbia, B.L., 1865), corporation lawyer; Hon. Gerrit Smith Stanton (Columbia, B.L., 1865); Theodore Stanton (Cornell, A.B., 1876, M.A.), journalist and author of "Woman Question in Europe; " Margaret Stanton Lawrence (Vassar, A.B., 1876), professor of physical training; Harriot Stanton Blatch (Vassar, A..B., 1878, M.A.), president New York Equal Suffrage league (1903-03); Robert Livingston Stanton (Cornell, B.S. 1880, Columbia, B.L., 1881).  Mrs. Stanton was president of the national committee of her party, 1855-65; of the Woman's Loyal league, 1861; of the National Woman Suffrage association, 1865-93, and honorary president, 1893-1903; and first president and founder of the International Council of Women, 1888.  In 1868, with Susan B. Anthony and Parker Pillsbury, she established and edited the Revolution, a weekly newspaper. She is the author of: The History of Woman Suffrage (with Susan B. Anthony and Matilda J. Gage, 3 vols., 1880-86, vol. 4, 1903); Eighty Years and More, autobiography (1895); The Woman's Bible (1895); and of contributions to periodicals at home and abroad. Her eightieth birthday (1895) was widely celebrated. She died in New York city, Oct. 2, 1902, the funeral address being delivered by the Rev. Moncure D. Conway,  and was buried at Woodlawn cemetery, New York city, where her husband was also buried, the Rev. Phoebe A. Hanaford officiating.  A memorial service was held in New York city, Nov. 19, 1902, William Lloyd Garrison delivering an address.