Eighty Years and More

Eighty Years And More;
Reminiscences
by Elizabeth
Cady Stanton

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Reminiscences
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Title: Eighty Years And More; Reminiscences 1815-1897
Author: Elizabeth Cady Stanton
Release Date: April 10, 2004 [EBook #11982]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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[Illustration: Elizabeth Cady Stanton]

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