Lizzie Stanton, I Knew Thee Well

by Ryan Holman

PROLOGUE

October 28, 1902

Dear Diary,

Tonight I write with grief, for Lizzie is dead. Her daughter, Margaret, has asked me to write her eulogy. I have had trouble conjuring up the memories. I guess I thought I'd go first. I have known Lizzie since our days at Emma Willard's Female Seminary in the late '20s: 1828, I believe, I last saw her at the turn of the century - I haven't talked with her personally since then, which I regret. But I still remember the day she and I met. I was incredibly excited; finally, there was a women's school that didn't just teach conversational French, embroidery, and the "polite rendering of landscapes on canvas". Although we (the students) would be learning the so-called "domestic arts", we would also learn logic, math, science, and literature. Yes, I truly did like the Seminary . . .

. . . from Sadie's journal

CHAPTER ONE

I think it was 1828 when I first met Lizzie. That was my first year at Emma Willard's Female Seminary, a school just for girls. I was on the porch, drafting a letter. I had just come to Troy, New York and was incredibly excited. It was my first "solitary" (of course I had an escort) trip, and even better, it was to a big city the farthest I'd been from home at the time. I had gone outside to write. I was thinking about something else, I guess, because as my hand flew across the page, and since my handwriting was very loopy at the time, my entire arm was moving. I accidentally moved my arm too far in one direction, and I knocked the ink bottle onto another girl's book. As I raised my eyes to apologize, I expected an ink-covered hand to leave a print on my face, but instead I looked into the "laughing" blue eyes of someone I would later come to know as Elizabeth Cady. I noticed that the book was large, like law books. Startled, I noticed that this was a law book. Moreover, I saw that she had been crossing out every law pertaining to women and the fact that they were lawfully property. Since I had spilled on those pages, Lizzie wasn't angry.

* * * * *

During my two years at Emma Willard's, I gathered much information about Lizzie's days as a child. Her father had been Judge Daniel Cady, her mother Margaret Livingston Cady. (I met these people later, but I'm getting ahead of myself.) Elizabeth had been the eighth child and fourth daughter of her family (although most Cady children by this point were dead). All of her brothers were dead, which made Daniel Cady wish that Lizzie had been a boy. Although from the sound of things, she sure acted like one.

She and her sister Margaret were close. They played in the cellar, in the garret, and even in the snow (places I'd never even dreamed of playing in as a child). Lizzie had even attempted to cut discriminating laws from her father's law book! (When she told me this story, I had laughed, but when she told me about Flora Campbell, her father's client whose son had begun to mistreat after she had been widowed, I was angry too.)

Soon after her youngest older brother Eleazer, a graduate from Union College, died, Elizabeth had set out to comfort her father by being just as good as Eleazer had been. She even attempted to go to Union College after her education at Johnstown Academy. Although Lizzie's education in Greek even surpassed the boys', Union College would not admit her. Therefore, Lizzie had come to Willard's.



CHAPTER TWO

One weekend, Lizzie had gone to Peterboro to see Libby Smith, as she did every month or so. Once I'd seen her off, I began walking to my room to study. As I passed Lizzie's room, I noticed a newspaper in her room with the headline: "60 Slaves Escaped from South Carolina". I knew Lizzie would be interested in this, though she obviously hadn't read it. I went in and picked up the paper. As I did so, another volume fell to the floor, open. I bent down to pick it up, wondering what it was. I recognized this was Lizzie's handwriting. "A succession of law students was always coming fresh from college and full of conceit." This must be her journal. Quickly, I closed it, knowing that reading someone's private journal, especially Lizzie's, was a sin. I put it back on the table and walked away, the paper forgotten. About halfway down the hall, I turned. How would Lizzie know if I read her journal from Peterboro? Quietly I snuck back to her room and closed the door behind me. Just as quietly, I sat on her bed and opened the volume.

A few passages caught my eye: With some quick math, I discovered that she'd been born on November 12, 1815, a year before myself. As a child, Lizzie had to wear red. She hated red, I knew. She had grown up in a gloomy, poplar-filled Johnstown, New York. To make things worse, her mother had scolded Lizzie when she attempted to move the stifling collar. I gather she probably liked summers best, because she got to wear blue. She and her sisters were always dressed exactly alike.

I skipped a few pages until I got to Eleazer's death. It turns out that Lizzie and her sisters, after Eleazer's death, seemed to have "early felt that this son filled a larger place in our father's affections and future plans than the five daughters together." Apparently, this helped to inspire her to ask Rev. Simon Hosak to teach her Greek, math, and horseback riding though Judge Cady didn't notice her accomplishments. However, in his will, Hosak directed that "my Greek lexicon, Testament, and grammar, and four volumes of Scott's Commentaries, I will to Elizabeth Cady." Soon after, yet another son had died as an infant and Margaret Cady had turned all of the remaining children to Tryphena, the newlywed eldest child. Life for Lizzie had become "an era of picnics, birthday parties, books, musical instruments, and ponies." It seemed that Tryphena's husband, Edward Baynard, had praised Elizabeth's advances in studies and on horseback. He also encouraged both work and play. They had traveled a lot, and had once gone sixty miles away to visit her grandmother. Lizzie had marveled at the ferries, bridges, and cities, and had explored Given's Hotel. However, she, Margaret, and Catherine (her newest sister) had to eat in their rooms because of their behavior. But they were still in "a whirlpool of excitement". After a week, they had become the heroines of the neighborhood. A few years later, Lizzie had graduated from Johnstown Academy, and planned to go to college. "Those with whom I had studied and contended for prizes for five years came to bid me good-bye, and I learned of the barrier that prevents me from following in their footsteps -- no girls admitted here," she had written. All that had been expected of her (and me for that matter) was attending "balls and dinners", and then to marry one of our former dance partners.

By the time I had read this far, the day was gone from the sky and the wax candle by Lizzie's bed had burned to a stump. I promised myself I would tell Lizzie what I had done when she returned from Peterboro. Hopefully, it would only be a few days.

CHAPTER THREE

I never did apologize. The second Lizzie came back, she claimed that she was an "earnest abolitionist". While she was at the Smiths', she said, she had found out that they had been harboring a runaway slave until she got to Canada. Harriet, the runaway, was only a quarter black, but still she was made a slave.

Soon after Lizzie and I graduated from Emma Willard's in 1830, Lizzie introduced me to Henry Stanton, a previously-engaged abolitionist attorney-in-training. Or at least we thought he was engaged. One afternoon, he asked if I'd seen "Lizzie Lee" and then showed me a beautiful ring. That was when he said he would invite Lizzie out on horseback tomorrow and then propose, although I wasn't to say a word. Apparently, he wasn't engaged (at least I hoped so for Lizzie's sake). I knew that the two had corresponded after Lizzie had graduated, but I didn't know that they had fallen in love. Even if he was ten years older than she.

The next night, when I asked about the proposal (and Lizzie had gotten over the fact that I had known about it), Elizabeth said she hadn't expected it and that he only wanted a riding companion. She added that she'd also accepted (although later she'd had to withdraw because of her father). However, they continued to write one another. Still guilty about reading her journal, I didn't try to read these letters through the envelopes (as I did for my own mail).

For a while, I didn't see Lizzie much -- actually for a few years. I'd moved in with my twin brother Fred, at least for a while after our mother died later in 1839. Then I came upon an opportunity -- once I had married and kept my own last name (unusual for that day, keeping Barrett and adding it to my husband's name). On Wednesday, May 8, 1840, I received a note from Lizzie -- she would elope with Henry despite her father's wishes and was now booked for a boat to England. Happily, I looked at my own ticket to London for the World Anti-Slavery Convention. With luck, we would be on the same ship. We were, amazingly.

Also on the ship was Lizzie's brother-in-law from Harriet, Daniel Eaton, who remembered when Lizzie had always wanted to play tag with him. He chased her all over the ship, attracting much attention. Especially that of Henry Birney, another delegate to the Anti-Slavery Convention. He thought Lizzie was "unladylike", especially when she asked to be hoisted up the mainmast in a chair and when she called her husband by his first name and then never answered to "Mrs. Henry Stanton". She'd go by "Cady", or even "Mrs. Stanton". But never Mrs. Henry Stanton. According to her, only slaves kept their master's name. Henry did want her to be more demure, but she never did become more like that.

The only reason that Mr. Birney had any standing In Lizzie's mind was that he liked to play chess (although Lizzie always beat him. She always did love to win).

CHAPTER FOUR

In London, she and I both met Lucretia Mott. At the convention, even Henry voted against keeping women in the meeting (as did my husband; we had a long discussion about it later). We were seated behind a large curtain. Behind that, Lucretia and Lizzie vowed to have a convention for women. In addition, they talked of the injustices. (In fact, Lizzie said Lucretia was a "revelation" of what a woman could be.)

After, when they went to a British museum, they never made it inside, although Lizzie had wanted to go since before I knew her. Instead, the two sat on the steps, discussing every injustice done to women.

Lizzie and Henry Stanton returned to America Christmas Eve of that year. "It seemed to me that the sky was clearer, the air more refreshing, and the sunlight more brilliant than any other land!" said Lizzie when she returned. Margaret Cady offered up her house to the couple until Henry passed the bar (lawyer's test). It was during this time that I actually met the Judge himself and Mrs. Cady, described by Lizzie as "queenly". The woman who had said "no" to everything was nearly six feet tall -- enough to even intimidate me. Even through all that had happened, the Cadys welcomed Lizzie back. Once again, Lizzie and I lost contact until March 2, 1842. Henry and Lizzie's firstborn came into this world -- Daniel Cady Stanton, in honor of Lizzie's father. Also in that year, Henry completed his studies. By the end of 1845, two more boys -- Henry Jr. and Gerrit -- graced the Stanton household. Also mentioned in the same letter as contained Gerrit's birth was news of a newfound friendship with Frederick Douglass.

By now it was 1848 and the Woman's Property Act, which gave women rights to keep their own earnings, invest them, and transact business without the husband's consent, was passed in New York. It came as no surprise - in 1848, everyone wanted a better society. Lucretia Mott and Lizzie both drafted a revised constitution. She had plenty of time -- don't look at me in awe. Henry Sr.'s job kept him away nine months out of the year.

The constitution came about when women wanted suffrage. In that same time period, the American Equal Rights Association formed from abolitionists and suffragettes. Their goal was to "secure equal rights to all Americans, especially the right of suffrage, irrespective of race, color, or sex." I was a part of that association, as a suffragette. Ladylike as I was, I still wanted the freedom to vote. (I assume that came from Lizzie.) The association challenged the 14th Amendment, which defined citizen as anyone "born or naturalized in the United States," also said that ". . . no State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges [as in the right to vote - author's note] or immunities of citizens of the United States . . . " If citizens are those born or naturalized in the United States, weren't American women also citizens? If they did not include women, the lawmakers were cutting out fifty percent of the population!

Lizzie and Lucretia got together with Jane Hunt, Martha Coffin Wright (Lucretia's sister), and Mary Ann M'Clintock in 1848, but this time to plan the first Women's Rights Convention. They planned it for July 19 and 20, in Seneca Falls (where Lizzie had moved recently with Henry). It was the first of its kind, this convention. And soon it would be a reality. The women knew the laws; but they still challenged them. Lizzie wrote me about it and enclosed a copy of her speech, in part saying that "woman herself must do this work; for woman alone can understand the height, the depth, and the length and breadth of her degradation." I wrote back and heartily approved of this part of the speech.

CHAPTER FIVE

In a Woman's Declaration of Independence, the women listed their 18 complaints, including the lack of a right to property, a woman being treated as though "civilly dead", and the divorce laws disregarding women. There was also a "rule of thumb": a man could beat his wife, but the stick could be no wider than his thumb. Who, when angered, would stop to measure some twig? Men, in the past, had attempted to "destroy a woman's confidence in her own powers, to lessen her self-respect, and to make her willing to lead a dependent and abject life."

Lizzie added a final demand, one she really wanted: the demand for women's suffrage. Everyone objected (I wouldn't have, but then again I wasn't there), including Lucretia. "It will make us look ridiculous," she said. But Lizzie refused to back down (just like with Henry and marriage - hmm). Mr. Stanton disapproved as well, as he threatened to skip town during the convention, to be held in the Wesleyan Chapel. One by one the amendments were adopted; all until the one about woman suffrage. I pitied Lizzie as she stood there, the Declaration of Rights and Sentiments before her. Then Frederick Douglass stood. "Suffrage is the power to choose rulers and make laws, and the right by which all others are secured," he said. I think I will remember those words as long as I live.

After, however, the ridicule was so horrid that had I organized this, I would have broken down. A newspaper called the women "sour old maids", "childless women", and "divorced wives", while saying of the philosophy that "they should have resolved at the same time that it was obligatory also on the [men] to wash dishes, scour up, be put to the tub, handle the broom, darn stockings, patch breeches, scold the servants, dress in the latest fashion, wear trinkets, look beautiful . . . " Lizzie was unmoved by it; she was none of these names. The Philadelphia Public Ledger and Daily Transcript explained, "A woman is nobody. A wife is everything . . . ", then saying that a woman's worth was her power to attract men. The second I read it, I threw it to the fire and immediately wrote Lizzie.

CHAPTER SIX

I believe it was Libby Smith who introduced Lizzie to bloomers. These garments were worn without corsets (which, as a side note, could apply up to 88 lbs. of pressure to a woman's abdomen. Trust me on that one). Needless to say, this drew a lot of alleged embarrassment; Judge Cady didn't let her visit him "in shorts". Lizzie's sons said the same thing, except using the term "in costume". Henry raised the most uproar, though. He was running for political office. How could a candidate's wife dress so unlike a lady should? Despite this, Henry won the election (by a very small number of votes).

In 1851, while wearing her bloomers, she met Susan Brownell Anthony, who was five years younger than herself. This partnership became a benefit to both women: Lizzie thought up ideas, Susan loaded and fired them.

Once again, both Lizzie and I became too busy to write one another very often. In January of 1856, Lizzie welcomed Harriot Eaton Stanton to our world. By now, Lizzie was 41. (Which means I was 40 -- never mind, I won't go on with that thought.) She wrote to Susan, "You and I have a prospect of a good long life. We shall not be in our prime before fifty, and after that we shall be good for twenty years at least." (I never said I stopped reading mail through the envelope by candlelight. But then Susan walked in and she has no tolerance for my curiosity.)

Once again, in 1859, Lizzie had a child - Robert Livingston Stanton. It was her last. But she had only begun to fight, in the words of John Paul Jones. Henry, at one point, wrote of the mobs, "I think you risk your lives . . . the mobocrats would as soon kill you as not."







CHAPTER SEVEN

November 1,1861

Dear Sadie,

The Civil War is music to my ears. When the Union frees the slaves and grants them suffrage, they just have to give women suffrage as well, don't they, Sadie? I am proud to have my boys fight in the battle: this cause is just. Susan doesn't believe the war is good; if you remember, she is a pacifist. I have no time now, but I hope we may see one another soon.

Your friend,
Lizzie

That was written soon after she left for Kansas. It turns out that the beds in Kansas aren't washed. After a night where a mouse or something crawled over her head, Lizzie moved out into the carriage. I guess a rat after half a circuit of lectures was too much. Although she still couldn't get a good night's sleep. Black pigs snorted and scratched the doors. Elizabeth always said she was proud of her endurance that night.

Spring of 1868 brought Lizzie closer to my residence in Pennsylvania; she moved to New Jersey. Trouble at home caused Henry and Lizzie to decide that the inconsistent marriage was better. I hate to say I told her so, but I had said that Henry needed a "humble companion to share his interests." I wonder why she never heeded my advice. But if she had, she wouldn't have been the Lizzie I befriended at Emma Willard's.

For a while, Lizzie stopped writing to me. But she wrote almost religiously to her daughter Margaret. ". . . Above all considerations of loneliness and fatigue, I feel that I am doing an immense amount of good in rousing women to thought and inspiring them with new hope and self-respect, that I am making the path smoother for you and Hattie and all the other dear girls." The letter was dated sometime around 1870; I read it from nearly four feet away.

I think it was 1869, when the women's movement split in two: Lizzie and Susan B. Anthony started the National Woman Suffrage Association (which I was a member of), where men were not allowed. Lucy Stone formed the other group, the more conservative American Woman Suffrage Association, which allowed both men and women.

November fifth brought news from Susan; "Well, I have been and done it, positively voted this morning at seven o'clock." She had led fourteen women to the polls and made headlines. Soon after, Elizabeth went to the floor of Congress and proposed a sixteenth amendment to the Constitution for woman suffrage. The committee, wrote Lizzie, wouldn't even listen. According to her "the chairman took special care not to listen. He alternately looked over newspapers, then jumped up to open or close a door or window. He stretched, yawned, gazed at the ceiling, cut his nails, sharpened his pencil, changing his occupation every two minutes."

She once said it would serve men right if women went on strike. I think she was right, even though we never did go on strike.

As her friend, I knew she was right, but what would the neighbors think? Lizzie and Susan had actually begun a short-lived newspaper, the Revolution, though they sold it in 1870. Liz was 54 - four years into her prime. She had a lot more living to do, she wrote.

But there were some who did not. Margaret Cady, her mother, died in 1871. The letters between us now were brief and far between. The next letter I received had a copy of a "Declaration of Rights for Women" enclosed in it. This had me happy; I wasn't prepared for the next letter: this one was from Maggie (Liz's daughter) in 1880. Lucretia Mott was dead. She said that her mother had written, "This Sunday was with me a sacred memorial day to her. I have vowed again, as I have so many times, that I shall in the future try to imitate her noble example." She could not attend the funeral, but I think Lucretia would have understood.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Later in her life, Elizabeth loved to spend time with her family. She wrote once in her journal (which I think she purposely left out on the desk when I was in the room), "Maggie and Rob are playing delightfully on the piano and the violin, Theodore is out taking his evening walk; Hattie reading; Henry [Jr.] and Neil [Daniel] are smoking on the piazza, and Bruno [the dog] barking at passers-by."

I didn't let that peaceful description fool me; her letter to her children after she attempted to vote at age 65 in 1880 read, "I had great fun frightening and muddling these old Dutch inspectors. The whole town is agape with my act."

1880 also signaled the beginning of her writing career. She published the first volume of History of Woman Suffrage, which detailed the lives of Lucretia Mott and 18 other dead women's rights activists. Volume two was completed in 1882, volume three in 1886. All three combined were just under 3000 pages.

In 1887, I received another letter which made me even more upset than Lucretia's death; Henry Stanton died suddenly. Elizabeth was not with him.

She wrote to me, " . . . when the news comes, the heart and pulses all seem to stand still. We cannot realize that those we have known in life are suddenly withdrawn, to be seen no more on earth. To be with them during their last sickness, to close their eyes, to look upon their lifeless form for the final days, and to go through the sad pageant that follows helps one, little by little, to realize the change. But when the boundless ocean rolls between you and the lost one, and the startling news comes upon you, without preparation, it is a terrible shock to every nerve and feeling, to body and mind alike." The next time I saw Lizzie was in 1888, the first international women's rites convention was held in Washington, D.C. I think she had recovered from Henry's death.

CHAPTER NINE

The 1890s signaled some of her greatest work in my opinion. She gave her "Solitude of Self" speech in 1892 - which I attended. The gist of it was that women have just as many responsibilities as men, but unfortunately were sheltered.

As an elderly woman, Lizzie (I can't believe I still called an about-eighty-year-old woman "Lizzie") didn't particularly like running herself ragged. She stopped being President of the National American (yes, they merged back into one back in 1890) Woman Suffrage Association, writing in her diary (I guess I never outgrew the curiosity), "we are sowing winter wheat, which the coming spring will see sprout and which hands other than ours will reap and enjoy."

Her reputation as an orator had preceded her to her eightieth birthday. She got flowers, gifts, letters (one from me), and telegrams in 1895. She still didn't stop. By now, Lizzie had noticed that the Bible discriminated against women. Therefore, she decided to write two volumes of The Women's Bible in 1895. As usual, this brought criticism, this time by the clergy. One clergyman was even so bold as to say, "This is the work of women, and the devil."

I was there and heard Lizzie's breezy response that had me smiling for the rest of the day. "This is a grave mistake. His Satanic Majesty was not invited to join the Revising Committee, which consists of women alone. Moreover, he has been so busy of late years attending Synods, General Assemblies and Conferences, to prevent the recognition of women delegates that he has had no time . . ."

Unfortunately, Elizabeth had begun to go blind. She wrote earlier this year, "my eyes grow dimmer from day to day . . . I have written Susan not to lay out any more work for me . . ."

Susan wrote me the day before yesterday; I didn't know what she was talking about until now. She said there was "an awful hush. How lonesome I do feel!"

EPILOGUE

August 26, 1920

Dear Diary,

". . . She was a great woman, one whose legend should continue on into the future generations," I concluded, standing over the coffin. I looked over at the horizon; the eulogy had begun at three in the afternoon. It was now six o'clock October 29, 1902. I vowed then I would take Lizzie's place in the fight, as long as I lived. Somehow I knew that we would get suffrage soon after or just before my own death. The latter was correct; here I sit, old Sadie, the day the Nineteenth Amendment was passed. The right for women to vote.

. . . from Sadie's journal

Bibliography