Elizabeth Cady Stanton Speeches & Writings File Speech: Untitled - Kansas Campaign, 1867 This is evidently the rough draft of a speech to be delivered in the Kansas campaign for suffrage. When Mrs. Stanton spoke with Governor Robinson all over the state in 1867. The Kansas speech is evidently written on the back of some earlier address. The completed address was given to the MS Department of the Historical Society of Kansas. Manuscript of speech delivered by Elizabeth Cady Stanton in Lawrence, Kansas [see p.9 of MS] during the campaign for the Woman Suffrage Constitutional Amendment in 1867.] Mrs. Stanton stumped the state with Ex-Governor Robinson. [For Kansas campaign see Woman Suffrage History by Stanton, Anthony & Gage, and for Mrs. Stanton's personal experiences see her Life & Letters by Stanton and Blatch (Harper Bros. 1922)] II XI .1. [* pp. 22 = words 2200.*] The battles of the past says Mazzini have been fought for rights & on that selfish principle progress ever has been & must be slow but when the most fortunate shall pause to think of the multitude below them sunk in ignorance poverty & vice, then will a divine power inspire those who would move the world. And this power has come, & we see this divine power, in this 19th Century moving over the whole surface of [things] society. In England where the masses groan under the crushing power of an established .2. church, a land monopoly a national debt that taxes everything a man eats drinks wears, reads thinks or breaths from his cradle to his coffin there you see those at whose feet the world has laid its richest gifts, pausing midway in their career to right the wrongs & injustice of the multitude below them. Such are the John Stuart Mills the Herbert Spencers the Brights the Abden's the Gladstones and to day even Lord Derby & d'Gesuelli are awaking to the need of schools for the working classes of England. Even in frigid, cold Russia far seeing statesmen are .3. pausing [?] in their schemes for personal aggrandizement, to demand education & enfranchisement for the 22000000 [?] newly emancipated serfs. Germany under the strong comprehensive policy of Bismarck is destined to be moulded anew in harmony with the higher ideals of this century, for as a recent writer says, as God always makes use of strong men & must have them to carry out his designs. The great Gen will no doubt help to bring about many liberal measures he does not himself see to day Most of the advance minds of France are writing up republican institutions, even at the risk of being exiled for their liberal .4. opinions. & the Emperor in his life of Cesar represents the old Roman as in favor of universal suffrage Look in our country how many men of wealth & family high in the shining walks of life have with a holy zeal given up luxury ease name, fame, & devoted themselves to the lifting up of the fallen & forsaken, to be mouths for the dumb, eyes for the blind & ears for those who could not hear and all these men have been led to the consideration of these moral questions by the women at their side. John Stuart Mill tells us in one of his works that his own wife first drew his attention to the importance of the enfranchisement of women & opened to him a new world of thought. 5 Now while such men as Herbert Spencer Garth Wilhelm Mazzini, Gasperin La Brulge [?] are all writing up Republican institutions, the dignity of man & all alike [thinking/printing] to woman as the new element of the higher civilization shall not woman in this republic clothe herself with new dignity & strength & take that lofty position that by right belongs to the mother of the race. There is an old German proverb that says, "that every woman comes into the world with a stone on her head" and that is as true now as the day it was said Your creeds your codes your conventionalisms have indeed 6 fell with crushing power on woman in all ages. But nature is mightier than laws & customs & in spite of the stone on her head already behold woman close on your heels in the whole world of thought, art, science, literature & government. When has the world produced an orator that draws such audiences & holds them spellbound as [she] did our own Anna Dickinson before she was 18 years old. Behold Rosa Bonheur in the world of art a girl of sixteen studying anatomy in the slaughter houses of Paris & giving to us the most wonderful painting of animal life that the world had yet seen. In sculpture we can point you to 7 Harriet Hismer, who stands unrivalled in science to Caroline Summerville, Maria Mitchell in political economy to Harriet Martineau & Catharine Beecher & in literature to Charlotte Bronte & Mrs. Stow who in their Jane Eyre & Uncle Tom have produced the greatest novels of this century These one & all are so many protests against the degraded political condition of woman & so many [proofs?] that she is destined everywhere to stand the peer of man. Now look at it men of Kansas what have all these old creeds & codes & customs amounted to, have not true women stood up under all these crushing weights. 8, & walked forward as easily as did Sampson with the gates of the city & now if you will only take the stone off her head she will be able to scale dimmer heights- commune with the Gods & by the power of attraction, draw man up to her level, to lift him from the dust into which he is [t?o] prone to grind As in the degradation of woman man has tasted sorrow shame & death so in her exaltation shall his moral & spiritual power gather new strength & hold the animal beneath his feet. I have often admired the wisdom of the Devil in making the acquaintance of our first parents & felt my heart glow with gratitude that he .9. did not give that first apple to man, for from his historic record I fear he would never have shared his illumination with woman. Yes it was well for us that we were first at the tree of knowledge, for that one taste of the good fruit has helped us to work out our own [?] with fear & trembling since meeting you citizens of Lawrence three weeks ago. I have adduped audiences of the people of Kansas every day. I have looked in their earnest faces, felt the deep beatings of the great popular heart, in your cities & villages in your partners & in the ______ I have carefully noted the utterances of your pulpit & press, & your leading men & women 10 & I feel assured that the people of Kansas are all right on both propositions. Here & there I have found some good republicans sitting anxious & disturbed on the fence not knowing exactly which way to jump & I have told these gentlemen if they would only take out their opera glasses & survey the opposing armies they would not be long in coming to a decision. On the one side behold the brave Gen Blunt, democratic politician, with his forces divided into three distinct regiments with their banners waving in the breeze bearing the inscriptions[?] anti-Sabbath, anti-Temperance, anti-Suffrage, waging a 11 hope less war against all these principles most sacred in republican institutions, against the liberal opinions of the 19th cen. On the other side behold the heroic women of Kansas who for the last twenty years have stood sentinels of your doors in the darkest hour of danger when Quantrel & Price sought to take your lives & lay waste your country. Behold the leaders of your press & pulpit your ablest editors & clergy statesmen, your governors Crawford & Robinson, your representatives, the honorables, Mr Pomeroy Ross & Clark your eastern emissaries, the 12 good [?] & the soul of old John Brown all teaching, preaching & singing the gospel of equality. that good time coming when all men & women, black & white shall stand equal before the law. That triumphant day in November when your cannon shall startle the civilized world with the news that a genuine republic is at last realized in the very heart of this western continent. In travelling through your state I have not yet had the pleasure of meeting, Gen Blunt, the the members of his staff or his press in battle array, but from what I hear of their moral boldness I am reminded of Shaskespeare's ragged regiment led on by the immortal Jack Falstaff. Your legislature in submitting to you last winter the two propositions to strike the words white male from your Constitution struck the key note of reconstruction In the consideration of these propositions you are not legitimately called on to make any special arguments for women & negroes as if they were [?] being outside all law. The same arguments made by you for the last century by the extension of the suffrage to all white men, the Same made by John Bright in England. The same made in Russia for the newly eman- cipated serfs are all the arguments we have to make for women & negroes. You are simply called to consider the rights of citizens of the republic. When you make negroes & women amenable to law, compel them to defend & support the state by war & taxation, you acknowledge their citizenship & are in justice bound to [*ans*] [[*ak*] their rights, paralell with their duties, We therefore appeal to the people of this state to vote thoughtfully & relogiously on these two propositions The political wire-pullers of both parties endorse but one proposition Notwithstanding the democratic party in its recent convention at Leavenworth declares itself opposed to both amendments And the Republican State Cen. Committee declares itself neutral on one yet the fact that the most influential men of both parties as individuals favor both propositions is the most encouraging sign of the times showing that universal suffrage which is the ultimatum of these propositions, is already accepted by the people & must form the basis of the liberal party of the not distant future Just as freedom in the war was a "military necessity" & negro suffrage in peace a "political necessity" so in reconstruction is universal suffrage the moral necessity of the hour As in our late political struggle the loyal element of the negro was needed to restore the ballance of power so in our legislation on all moral questions is the feminine element needed to secure success. Had I the 15,000,000 votes of the women of this country. as the physical, moral necessities of the being ensurindividual [life] growth & developement so the commercial & political necessities of a nation compel each onward step [in the] progress [of civilization] When the great plough share of war roused this nation to the sin of slavery few were ready for its death blow so intertwined & incorporated was it with every branch of our government but when defeat after defeat followed our armies & statesmanship stood at a deadlock [but, in] when dark clouds hung over the republic, in the depths of despair we learned the immutable law of justice Then the nation rose in its majesty emancipation was proclaimed & man rejoiced in new found liberty. Then above the din of arms, the Cannons roar, the wail of mothers for their first born, rose soft, clear that divine symphony uttered on the cross & echoed round the world, " All men are created equal" Then nerved for grand deed the people were ready for any onward step but wily politicians who always have an eye to their personal aggrandizement procrastinated from day to day from month to month from year to year what all far seeing statesmen knew would come, & instead of grand measures based on principle they have been proposing partial measures based on policy & the result is the problem of reconstruction is no nearer its solution to day than it was at the end of the war & now the moral necessities of this hour press upon us & it is with these necessities we urge the people of this state to grapple to day. Your education, your judgement on the great principles of government are vital at this time as to you in Providence is given the opportunity to make The objections to this question of [nonsense?] and [measurement?] life can be given in one word, "it is a new theory," this is ever the plea of conservatism against every step in [arguments?] The first experiment of a genuine republic. Remember the civilized world awaits your action to see if the principles of our fathers are possible in government. A mighty Frenchmen pictured the first conservative as one going about at the dawn of creation exclaiming with eyes & hands uplifted My God, my God [conserve?] the chaos. To the philosopher who seeing the discord & observer of all political religions & social world[s], proposes some measures for establishing order & harmony [.] The objections of these [about?] to everything new to every [moral?] step are not more absurd than the anxiety of this first conservative lest in disturbing chaos something more should come of it. While the whole race groans under the penalty of violated law, while the great souls of earth cry out let there be light, let us divide truth from error, virtue from vice beauty from deformity purity from corruption, why cling with such tenacity to the moral chaos that surrounds us. If that first conservative had had his way, the material world would have remained forever in its primitive chaotic condition. We should have had no as the Creator in the beginning standing with one foot in land & one on sea, mid darkness & chaos said "let there be light" light, no diminishing of land & water, of the firmaments, nor planetary worlds. The beauty harmony & order of the whole solar system that fills us with joy & wonder to contemplate would be unknown. [Now] So too the philosophers & far seeing statesmen of our day viewing the moral chaos that surrounds say "Let there be light." Let us have free discussion of everything that concerns the deepest broadest & highest interests of mankind. But the narrow conservative, in view of the selfishness & corruption of our politics, the bigotry & demeaning in our church, the jealousies & heart burnings of our homes, in view of all this, lifts with his hands & eyes with horror as every step of prayers & says pressure the chaos Transcribed and reviewed by volunteers participating in the By The People project at crowd.loc.gov.