THE SOLITARY SOUL: ELIZABETH CADY STANTON AND WOMEN’S RIGHTS

On January 18, 1892 Elizabeth Cady Stanton presented the written text of a speech read for her to the House Committee on the Judiciary;  later that same day she delivered the same speech as her farewell address to the twenty‑fourth national convention of the National American Woman Suffrage Association.  In February she personally repeated it at a hearing held by the Senate Committee on Woman Suffrage.1  The speech, entitled “The Solitude of Self,” forcefully stated Stanton’s concept of what woman’s rights ought to be.  While definitely not her last public declaration on women’s rights,  it was one of her most effective.  A highly skilled author and lecturer, the seventy‑six year old Stanton knew how to plead her cause.  What made this speech so powerful had as much to do with how she constructed it, as it did with what she said. 

“The Solitude of Self,” unique in several aspects,   did not follow the usual rhetorical conventions of the day.  According to linguist Karlyn Campbell it violated nearly every traditional rule:  no logical structure, no appeal to values shared by the speaker and her audience,  no introduction, and no conclusion. Intended to be a persuasive piece, it ended with a question not an answer.2  Historian Aileen Kraditor described the speech as “the epitome of the natural right argument for women suffrage.”3 Stanton biographer Elisabeth Griffith characterized it as Stanton’s “definitive statement of her feminist ideology.”4 Feminist Gerda Lerner argued that in this speech Stanton reduced “feminism to its fundamental principle:  women are responsible individuals and, under divine and human law, should be treated as such.”5  “The Solitude of Self” compressed all of the elements of Stanton’s life‑long struggle into a poetic and prophetic statement.  Based on her philosophy of natural rights, written in her “republican bias” and “feminist ferocity,” and delivered with a “tragic sense of loneliness” this speech encapsulated and illustrated the plight of the unemancipated woman.6  In fact the speech went far beyond woman’s rights, it outlined what human rights ought to be. 

 Elizabeth Cady Stanton, a remarkably ordinary woman, accomplished some extraordinary things.  Born into a very political family in upstate New York, Stanton credits her interest in politics and public life to the prenatal campaigning her mother did just before her “arrival.”7  Stanton’s typical northeastern Protestant upper middle class family did not offer a particularly nurturing environment for a lively and curious girl.  She formed her disdain for the controlling influence of patriarchal society at a fairly early age.  Daniel Cady, Elizabeth’s father, no better or worse than most nineteenth century fathers, valued his one son above his many daughters.  Keenly aware that she could never measure up for her father because she was not a “boy,” the outspoken Miss Cady continued to rail against this distinction for her entire life.8  She vividly recalled her many  childhood punishments for throwing “tantrums.”  “I suppose they [the tantrums] were really justifiable acts of rebellion against the tyranny of those in authority.”9   

 Stanton’s childhood and youthful experiences became the cornerstone of her adult philosophy.  She identified what she perceived to be the oppressive elements in her society:  government with its laws, and organized religion with its prohibitions.   During the many hours she spent observing her father’s law practice she witnessed the uneven treatment accorded to women by the legal system.  “The tears and complaints of the women who came to my father for legal advice touched my heart and early drew my attention to the injustice and cruelty of the laws.”10  Her religious experiences she characterized as oppressive and limiting.  “The memory of my own suffering has prevented me from ever shadowing one young soul with any of the superstitions of the Christian religion.”11  Stanton grew into a rebel, albeit, a rather conventional one in some cases;  for her marriage became a rebellion.

Against her family’s wishes Elizabeth Cady married Henry B. Stanton, an abolitionist lawyer ten years her senior. As if to prove her father wrong, she boasted in her autobiography that her union with Henry lasted for nearly fifty years and produced seven children.  Stanton’s support for her husband’s cause brought her into contact with many of the prominent reformers of her day and provided an outlet for her own energy.  Stanton, along with many other “refined” ladies of her time contributed their efforts to the success of the abolitionist movement; working to extend rights to black male slaves they themselves did not possess.  Freed from the constraints placed upon single women in nineteenth century American society, Mrs. Stanton found her own voice and her own cause:  equal rights for women not just suffrage. 

 Stanton spent much of her adult life writing and speaking in defense of women.  The fight to gain women’s suffrage proved to be a long and hard fought struggle.  As early as 1867, in a speech she entitled “The Case for Universal Suffrage,” she called for the one change in government which would include women in the political process.  Why should women get the vote?  Because, she asserted, ” [i]t is in vain to look for a genuine republic in this country until the women are baptized into the idea, until they understand the genius of our institutions, . . . until they hold the ballot in their hands and have a direct voice in our legislation.”12 

Many Americans did not agree with her assessment.  Carl Degler observed that many men did not want to give up the idea that women should be relegated to their own “separate spheres,” where they could be “protected” and “guided.” Degler also noted that many women preferred being taken care of and feared the consequences of emancipation.13  Stanton rejected this fear of political and social freedom, declaring that  voting was the beginning not the end.  In 1888 she complained that fellow activists Susan B. Anthony and Lucy Stone “[they]. . . see suffrage only.  They do not see woman’s religious and social bondage.”14  Perhaps her most eloquent plea for real equality came in the text of her speech entitled “The Solitude of Self.”

Contemporaries and modern critics read and applauded the speech, her friend suffragette Susan B. Anthony called the speech, Stanton’s best work; feminist Gerda Lerner, characterized it as the distillation of feminism;  scholar Karlyn Campbell labeled it a rationale for feminism.  While all of those things, “The Solitude of Self,” more importantly, explained Stanton’s ideology concerning the personal freedom of women as members of the human family.  She based her argument for equal rights on four points of consideration:  “. . . what belongs to her as [one] an individual . . . the arbiter of her own destiny,” [two] ” . . . as a citizen . . .  as a member of a great nation,”  [three] “as a woman, an equal factor in civilization,” [four] “. . . because of her birthright to self‑sovereignty;  because, as an individual she must learn to rely on herself.”15 

The speech addressed those in Stanton’s audience who would deny women full participation in politics and economics because they considered them to be inferior beings which must be “protected” and “guided” in social, economic and political matters.   This attitude flew in the face of the very precepts upon which the United States was founded, and discarded a large and potentially vital portion of the population.  According to Stanton’s argument, the principles of the Declaration of Independence and the provisions of the Constitution should apply to both men and women.  Only then could all of the middle class values of society, government and the marketplace be enjoyed by both men and women :

            . . . Inasmuch, then, as woman shares equally the joys and            sorrows of time and eternity, is it not the height of presumption in man to propose to represent her at the ballot box and the throne of grace, to do her voting in the state, her praying in the church, and to assume the position of high priest at the family altar?16

            Stanton did not advocate the abolition of the family, she merely requested a more equitable division of labor and a shared level of responsibility by all of the members, male and female.17  “Machinery has taken the labors of women as well as man on its tireless shoulders.”18 She pleaded for opportunity, for education, and for equality for women on the basis of their individual humanity: 

            We come into the world alone, unlike all who have gone before us, we leave it alone, under circumstances peculiar to ourselves.   . . .

            We ask for the complete development of every individual, first, for his own benefit and happiness. . . .

            We provide alike for all their individual necessities;  then each man bears his own burden. . . .

            The great lesson that nature seems to teach us at all ages is self‑dependence, self‑protection, self‑support.19 

            “The Solitude of Self” became Elizabeth Cady Stanton’s gift, not only to women fighting to gain the right to vote, but to succeeding generations of women who would continue the fight for equality in all phases of life.  Stanton understood better than most of her contemporaries that suffrage was only a start, not an end.  She left her audience with a question which highlighted the problem then, and now.  Who has the right to speak, act and rule for another?  “Who, I ask you, dare take on himself the rights, duties, the responsibilities of another human soul?”20  To read the entire speech go to the following URL: http://hermitary.com/solitude/stanton.html   

BIBLIOGRAPHY

BOOKS

Anderson, Judith, ed.  Outspoken Women, Speeches by American Women Reformers 1635‑1935.  Dubuque:  Kendal Hunt, 1984.

Anthony, Susan B., Ida Husted Harper, eds.  The History of Woman Suffrage, Vol. IV, 1883‑1900.  New York:  Susan B. Anthony, 1902.

Banner, Lois W.  Elizabeth Cady Stanton, A Radical for Woman’s Rights.  Boston:  Little, Brown and Company, 1980.

Degler, Carl N.  At Odds:  Women and the Family in America From the Revolution to the Present.  New York:  Oxford University Press, 1980.

Du Bois, Ellen Carol, ed.  The Elizabeth Cady Stanton ‑ Susan B. Anthony Reader, Correspondence, Writings, Speeches.  Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1981.

Griffith, Elisabeth.  In Her Own Right:  The Life of Elizabeth Cady Stanton.  New York:  Oxford University Press, 1984.

Kraditor, Aileen S.  The Ideas of the Woman Suffrage Movement, 1890‑1920.  New York:  Columbia University Press, 1965.

Lerner, Gerda.  The Female Experience, An American Documentary.             Indianapolis:  Bobbs‑Merrill Educational Publishing, 1977.

Stanton, Elizabeth Cady.  Eighty Years and More:  Reminiscences,     1815‑1897.  New York:  Schocken Books, 1971.

ARTICLES

Campbell, Karlyn Kehrs.  “Stanton’s `The Solitude of Self’:  A Rationale For Feminism,”  The Quarterly Journal of Speech 66(1980), 304‑12.

Pickens, Donald K., “`The Solitude of Self’:  A Curious Historical Document,” Journal of Unconventional History, 2(Winter, 1992), 57‑69.

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END NOTES

1Karlyn Kehrs Campbell, “Stanton’s `The Solitude of Self’:  A Rationale for Feminism,” The Quarterly Journal of Speech 66(1980), 304.

2Ibid., 305.

3Aileen S. Kraditor, The Ideas of the Woman Suffrage Movement, 1890‑1920, (New York:  Columbia University Press, 1965), 46.

4Elisabeth Griffith, In Her Own Right:  The Life of Elizabeth Cady Stanton, (New York:  Oxford University Press, 1984), 203.

5Gerda Lerner, The Female Experience, An American Documentary, (Indianapolis:  Bobbs‑Merrill Educational Publishing, 1977), 464.

6Griffith, 203.

7Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Eighty Years and More:  Reminiscences, 1815‑1897, (New York:  Schocken Books, 1971), 2.

8Ibid., 20.

9Ibid., 12.

10Ibid., 31.

11Ibid., 26.

12Judith Anderson, ed., Outspoken Women, Speeches by American Women Reformers 1635‑1935, (Dubuque:  Kendal Hunt, 1984), 166.

13Carl Degler, At Odds:  Women and the Family in America From the Revolution to the Present, (New York:  Oxford University Press, 1980), 343.

14Lois W. Banner, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, A Radical for Woamn’s Rights, (Boston:  Little, Brown and Company, 1980), 154.

15Ellen Carol DuBois, ed., Elizabeth Cady Stanton ‑ Susan B. Anthony Reader, Correspondence, Writings, Speeches, (Boston:  Northeastern University Press, 1981), 247.  All references to  “The Solitude of Self will be quoted from this source.

16Donald K. Pickens, “`The Solitude of Self’:  A Curious Historical Document,” Journal of Unconventional History, 2(Winter, 1992), 58.  DuBois, 251.

17Degler, 345.

18DuBois, 253.

19Ibid., 248.

20Ibid., 254.