Elizabeth Cady Stanton Speeches & Writings File Speech: Address before Woman's Loyal League, 1863 [*231 [An Address by Elizabeth Cady Stanton, president of the Women's Loyal League, before its members delivered 1863.]*] 1. Since I met you last it has been my good fortune, to be present at a feast of fashionable applicants, & to discuss with them for hours the questions of the day. Great fortune I say, for I have felt [was] some more [?] than ever of the importance of an educational lawyer such as was proposed to be. I was not prepared to have American citizens, born & educated in the free hills of New-England utter the sentiments I then heard. I was not prepared to have intelligent educated men of the leading professions, Ministers, lawyers, Doctors, presume [ ] opinion a failure, & declare themselves in favor of a stronger government like Russia, France, & England. But to give you an idea of the conversation. One gentleman after a tirade on the bigotry [ ], [ ] of New England. (where by the by he was born.) advanced this startling statement that education was not as thorough & universal in N.E. as it was thirty years ago. I doubted the statement & asked for his statistic on that point. He had none of course but he said he could furnish statistics to prove his statement [ ] it not [ ] sufficiently, [ ] by the fact that thirty years ago. Men of character, learning & wisdom, filled [ ] the prominent places of trust & responsibility. Our Presidents, Senators Congressmen Judges Lawyers, Bishops & Priests, were unknowing minds, now such men are not to be favored & a most ordinary type of manhood reigned in their stead. You cannot deny that [ ] be triumphantly confusing some of the men of these different periods. I do not deny [ ] I your last statement, but [ ] it has nothing to do[ with your [ ] in regard to the decline of education. The [ ] still have great men, & it is not because the people know ] them they [ ], fifty years ago. That these great men do not fill the public parts of [ ] & trust. It is not because education has declined, but because by the aggression of slavery our political parties & characters have been corrupted to the very core. [*233*] You all know that for years there has been no [ ] for priests to say mass in church & state, who was not honest, according to Southern ethics in Slavery. The south always a united [ ] with the [ ] [ ] the north that was true to her interests, hence the northern men with southern principles filled the offices. Oft times with as little [ ] as conscience another [ ] the principle of equality, was all bosh. It was a great catch word for the Fathers. [ ] [ ] in the Declaration of Independence was a great motto for a flag & great for a Fourth of July oration, is a political campaign when it was necessary to gather up the Irish vote. Well, said I, we must not go to the Middle ages for facts & philosophy, just look at our own history. It fully forms all your questions [?]. Here we have tried two forms of government, The Northern states a republic, The southern a despotism, as distinct as two nations could be under one flag, living together in friendship & necessarily modifying each others institution. The south have checked us in the march of civilization & we have checked their tendency to hopeless barbarism, Which country is most prosperous, compare them in exports, imports shipping. Compare Massachusetts with nothing to export but fish, ice & [?] with South Carolina, Boston with Charleston the chief cities Look at the number of inhabitants schools, churches, colleges. At their charitable institutions, prisons, jails, courts. Hotels, private houses, streets, rails, in everything Massachusetts as far excels South Carolina as England excels China The south has its nobility, its men & women of elegant leisure with time to read & write & think, & study the art of government. Brave men & fair women, who in foreign courts compare well, with the aristocracy of other nations. How many poets, orators, authors, artists & men of science have they sent forth the last century. Who are their great scholars, their writers in theology, law & government. Who are there women? What have they invented? What discovery have they made in the arts & sciences. There pretentions are major indeed. The N.rth has living facts in all these departments, to prove our superiority not to the south alone but to all the nations of the earth, & the best feature of our great men & women is that they worked with their hands while they thought, invented, discovered. What woman at the south has written nine powerfully & beautifully [ ] Harriet Beecher Stowe & Lydia Maria Child & yet these northern women have cooked their own food made their own cloths swept & garnished their own homes, through many years of intellectual thought & labour .5. Has she produced a Johenthan Edwards, a Webster, Adams, Channing, Beecher [learned?] Blacksmith. No. No. This is one of those plea's that aristocracy sets up for its defence. The great refrain of the hour is for us to exalt the Divine idea of equality purloined by the Fathers, now thrice baptized in blood. The speedy way to end this war is to cut out the principle of cast & class, in this western continent, & glorify our free institutions unparalled in the history of the race. Shall subjects of the Emperor Napoleon take the lead at this time in magnifying the greatness & grandeur of one form of government, shall it be left for them to 236 There has been a great deal of complaint among the people that no great men, no heroes, like Napoleon Wellington or Alexander could be found to lead us through this sea of troubles. This very want is in harmony with our national idea our rulers & leaders never rise above the level of the people & can go no further or faster than they do, as Wendell Phillips says democracy does not breed leaders. This is the people's war & they must fight it & plan it. The camp & cabinet is under their control, & when victory comes in arms, we bring out our triumphal cure, & place therein, not any heroes Presidents or military chieftains but our glorious old flag & an American eagle, & in equal ground, the citizens of the Republic our secret of national success the way in which we can survive an enduring immortality. And shall our [curent?] sons. who have tried, & present the fact in peace & now that man has the power of self-government, that individual voluntary control is better than centralized arbitrary power. Shall they, to the waiting nations of the earth, who look to us for the law of liberty proclaim the Despot & the dagger. Transcribed and reviewed by volunteers participating in the By The People project at crowd.loc.gov.