EIGHTY YEARS AND MORE
REMINISCENCES 1815-1897
ELIZABETH CADY STANTON
"Social science affirms that woman's place in society marks the level of
civilization."
I DEDICATE THIS VOLUME TO
SUSAN B. ANTHONY,
MY STEADFAST FRIEND FOR HALF A CENTURY.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER
I. CHILDHOOD
II. SCHOOL DAYS
III. GIRLHOOD
IV. LIFE AT PETERBORO
V. OUR WEDDING JOURNEY
VI. HOMEWARD BOUND
VII. MOTHERHOOD
VIII. BOSTON AND CHELSEA
IX. THE FIRST WOMAN'S RIGHTS CONVENTION
X. SUSAN B. ANTHONY
XI. SUSAN B. ANTHONY (_Continued_)
XII. MY FIRST SPEECH BEFORE A LEGISLATURE
XIII. REFORMS AND MOBS
XIV. VIEWS ON MARRIAGE AND DIVORCE
XV. WOMEN AS PATRIOTS
XVI. PIONEER LIFE IN KANSAS--OUR NEWSPAPER "THE
REVOLUTION"
XVII. LYCEUMS AND LECTURERS
XVIII. WESTWARD HO!
XIX. THE SPIRIT OF '76
XX. WRITING "THE HISTORY OF WOMAN SUFFRAGE"
XXI. IN THE SOUTH OF FRANCE
XXII. REFORMS AND REFORMERS IN GREAT BRITAIN
XXIII. WOMAN AND THEOLOGY
XXIV. ENGLAND AND FRANCE REVISITED
XXV. THE INTERNATIONAL COUNCIL OF WOMEN
XXVI. MY LAST VISIT TO ENGLAND
XXVII. SIXTIETH ANNIVERSARY OF THE CLASS OF 1832--THE
WOMAN'S BIBLE
XXVIII. MY EIGHTIETH BIRTHDAY
INDEX OF NAMES
LIST OF PORTRAITS.
The Author, _Frontispiece_
Margaret Livingston Cady
Judge Daniel Cady
Henry Brewster Stanton
The Author and Daughter
The Author and Son
Susan B. Anthony
Elizabeth Smith Miller
Children and Grandchildren
The Author, Mrs. Blatch, and Nora
The Author, Mrs. Lawrence, and Robert Livingston Stanton
EIGHTY YEARS AND MORE.
CHAPTER I.
CHILDHOOD.
The psychical growth of a child is not influenced by days and years, but
by the impressions passing events make on its mind. What may prove a
sudden awakening to one, giving an impulse in a certain direction that
may last for years, may make no impression on another. People wonder why
the children of the same family differ so widely, though they have had
the same domestic discipline, the same school and church teaching, and
have grown up under the same influences and with the same environments.
As well wonder why lilies and lilacs in the same latitude are not all
alike in color and equally fragrant. Children differ as widely as these
in the primal elements of their physical and psychical life.
Who can estimate the power of antenatal influences, or the child's
surroundings in its earliest years, the effect of some passing word or
sight on one, that makes no impression on another? The unhappiness of
one child under a certain home discipline is not inconsistent with the
content of another under this same discipline. One, yearning for broader
freedom, is in a chronic condition of rebellion; the other, more easily
satisfied, quietly accepts the situation. Everything is seen from a
different standpoint; everything takes its color from the mind of the
beholder.
I am moved to recall what I can of my early days, what I thought and
felt, that grown people may have a better understanding of children and
do more for their happiness and development. I see so much tyranny
exercised over children, even by well-disposed parents, and in so many
varied forms,--a tyranny to which these parents are themselves
insensible,--that I desire to paint my joys and sorrows in as vivid
colors as possible, in the hope that I may do something to defend the
weak from the strong. People never dream of all that is going on in the
little heads of the young, for few adults are given to introspection,
and those who are incapable of recalling their own feelings under
restraint and disappointment can have no appreciation of the sufferings
of children who can neither describe nor analyze what they feel. In
defending themselves against injustice they are as helpless as dumb
animals. What is insignificant to their elders is often to them a source
of great joy or sorrow.
With several generations of vigorous, enterprising ancestors behind me,
I commenced the struggle of life under favorable circumstances on the
12th day of November, 1815, the same year that my father, Daniel Cady, a
distinguished lawyer and judge in the State of New York, was elected to
Congress. Perhaps the excitement of a political campaign, in which my
mother took the deepest interest, may have had an influence on my
prenatal life and given me the strong desire that I have always felt to
participate in the rights and duties of government.
My father was a man of firm character and unimpeachable integrity, and
yet sensitive and modest to a painful degree. There were but two places
in which he felt at ease--in the courthouse and at his own fireside.
Though gentle and tender, he had such a dignified repose and reserve of
manner that, as children, we regarded him with fear rather than
affection.
My mother, Margaret Livingston, a tall, queenly looking woman, was
courageous, self-reliant, and at her ease under all circumstances and in
all places. She was the daughter of Colonel James Livingston, who took
an active part in the War of the Revolution.
Colonel Livingston was stationed at West Point when Arnold made the
attempt to betray that stronghold into the hands of the enemy. In the
absence of General Washington and his superior officer, he took the
responsibility of firing into the _Vulture_, a suspicious looking
British vessel that lay at anchor near the opposite bank of the Hudson
River. It was a fatal shot for André, the British spy, with whom Arnold
was then consummating his treason. Hit between wind and water, the
vessel spread her sails and hastened down the river, leaving André, with
his papers, to be captured while Arnold made his escape through the
lines, before his treason was suspected.
On General Washington's return to West Point, he sent for my grandfather
and reprimanded him for acting in so important a matter without orders,
thereby making himself liable to court-martial; but, after fully
impressing the young officer with the danger of such self-sufficiency on
ordinary occasions, he admitted that a most fortunate shot had been sent
into the _Vulture_, "for," he said, "we are in no condition just now to
defend ourselves against the British forces in New York, and the
capture of this spy has saved us."
My mother had the military idea of government, but her children, like
their grandfather, were disposed to assume the responsibility of their
own actions; thus the ancestral traits in mother and children modified,
in a measure, the dangerous tendencies in each.
Our parents were as kind, indulgent, and considerate as the Puritan
ideas of those days permitted, but fear, rather than love, of God and
parents alike, predominated. Add to this our timidity in our intercourse
with servants and teachers, our dread of the ever present devil, and the
reader will see that, under such conditions, nothing but strong
self-will and a good share of hope and mirthfulness could have saved an
ordinary child from becoming a mere nullity.
The first event engraved on my memory was the birth of a sister when I
was four years old. It was a cold morning in January when the brawny
Scotch nurse carried me to see the little stranger, whose advent was a
matter of intense interest to me for many weeks after. The large,
pleasant room with the white curtains and bright wood fire on the
hearth, where panada, catnip, and all kinds of little messes which we
were allowed to taste were kept warm, was the center of attraction for
the older children. I heard so many friends remark, "What a pity it is
she's a girl!" that I felt a kind of compassion for the little baby.
True, our family consisted of five girls and only one boy, but I did not
understand at that time that girls were considered an inferior order of
beings.
To form some idea of my surroundings at this time, imagine a two-story
white frame house with a hall through the middle, rooms on either side,
and a large back building with grounds on the side and rear, which
joined the garden of our good Presbyterian minister, the Rev. Simon
Hosack, of whom I shall have more to say in another chapter. Our
favorite resorts in the house were the garret and cellar. In the former
were barrels of hickory nuts, and, on a long shelf, large cakes of maple
sugar and all kinds of dried herbs and sweet flag; spinning wheels, a
number of small white cotton bags filled with bundles, marked in ink,
"silk," "cotton," "flannel," "calico," etc., as well as ancient
masculine and feminine costumes. Here we would crack the nuts, nibble
the sharp edges of the maple sugar, chew some favorite herb, play ball
with the bags, whirl the old spinning wheels, dress up in our ancestors'
clothes, and take a bird's-eye view of the surrounding country from an
enticing scuttle hole. This was forbidden ground; but, nevertheless, we
often went there on the sly, which only made the little escapades more
enjoyable.
The cellar of our house was filled, in winter, with barrels of apples,
vegetables, salt meats, cider, butter, pounding barrels, washtubs, etc.,
offering admirable nooks for playing hide and seek. Two tallow candles
threw a faint light over the scene on certain occasions. This cellar was
on a level with a large kitchen where we played blind man's buff and
other games when the day's work was done. These two rooms are the center
of many of the merriest memories of my childhood days.
I can recall three colored men, Abraham, Peter, and Jacob, who acted as
menservants in our youth. In turn they would sometimes play on the banjo
for us to dance, taking real enjoyment in our games. They are all at
rest now with "Old Uncle Ned in the place where the good niggers go."
Our nurses, Lockey Danford, Polly Bell, Mary Dunn, and Cornelia
Nickeloy--peace to their ashes--were the only shadows on the gayety of
these winter evenings; for their chief delight was to hurry us off to
bed, that they might receive their beaux or make short calls in the
neighborhood. My memory of them is mingled with no sentiment of
gratitude or affection. In expressing their opinion of us in after
years, they said we were a very troublesome, obstinate, disobedient set
of children. I have no doubt we were in constant rebellion against their
petty tyranny. Abraham, Peter, and Jacob viewed us in a different light,
and I have the most pleasant recollections of their kind services.
In the winter, outside the house, we had the snow with which to build
statues and make forts, and huge piles of wood covered with ice, which
we called the Alps, so difficult were they of ascent and descent. There
we would climb up and down by the hour, if not interrupted, which,
however, was generally the case. It always seemed to me that, in the
height of our enthusiasm, we were invariably summoned to some
disagreeable duty, which would appear to show that thus early I keenly
enjoyed outdoor life. Theodore Tilton has thus described the place where
I was born: "Birthplace is secondary parentage, and transmits character.
Johnstown was more famous half a century ago than since; for then,
though small, it was a marked intellectual center; and now, though
large, it is an unmarked manufacturing town. Before the birth of
Elizabeth Cady it was the vice-ducal seat of Sir William Johnson, the
famous English negotiator with the Indians. During her girlhood it was
an arena for the intellectual wrestlings of Kent, Tompkins, Spencer,
Elisha Williams, and Abraham Van Vechten, who, as lawyers, were among
the chiefest of their time. It is now devoted mainly to the fabrication
of steel springs and buckskin gloves. So, like Wordsworth's early star,
it has faded into the light of common day. But Johnstown retains one of
its ancient splendors--a glory still fresh as at the foundation of the