← Civics & Coffee: A History Podcast
Civics & Coffee: A History Podcast
The Weary, Imperfect Warrior: Elizabeth Cady Stanton Part Two
00:18:01
Loading summary
Transcript1 lines
- [00:01]
A
Welcome to Civics and Coffee, a history podcast. The show all about United States history delivered to you in the time it takes to enjoy your morning cup of coffee. I'm your host, Alicia, a historian trained in United States history with a passion for telling both the known and unknown parts of America's past. So grab your coffee and get ready for some bite sized history at this eventful hour. The patriotism of woman shone forth as fervently and spontaneously as did that of man, and her self sacrifice and devotion were displayed in as many varied fields of action. While he buckled on his knapsack and marched forth to conquer the enemy, she planned the campaigns which brought the nation victory, fought in the ranks when she could do so without detection. Inspired the Sanitary commission, gathered needed supplies for the grand army, provided nurses for the hospitals, comforted the sick, smoothed the pillows of the dying, inscribed the last messages of love to those far away, and marked the resting places where the brave men fell. The labor women accomplished the hardships they endured. The time and strength they sacrificed in the war that summoned 3 million men to arms can never be fully appreciated. Elizabeth Cady Stanton, 1897 hey everyone, welcome back. Elizabeth Cady Stanton had been waging a personal battle for women's equality since the 1840s, after attending the World Anti Slavery Convention and hosting the Women's Rights Convention at seneca Falls in 1848. But when Abraham Lincoln was elected president in 1860 and Southern states announced their intention to secede from the Union, the nation could do little more than sit and wait. As the nation focused on war, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony remained committed to their activism as new opportunities and new frustrations emerged. This week I'm wrapping up my coverage of Elizabeth Cady Stanton. How did she and Susan work together during the Civil War? What happened in Reconstruction that caused Elizabeth to have such racial animosity? And what prompted her to create the woman's Bible. Grab your cup of coffee, peeps. Let's do this. When I left you last week, Elizabeth had the embarrassing experience of canceling one of the most important speaking engagements to date of her career due to a difficult pregnancy. Unwilling to risk the damage it might do to the cause, Elizabeth told a white lie to save face, explaining to her cousin that the humiliation would be too much to bear. She rebounded in 1860, however, giving a speech at the National Women's Rights Convention on a topic that had already caused some consternation. Divorce reform. It was a speech that divided those in attendance, with at least one critic claiming that the topic did not belong on a woman's platform, since the subject of divorce was one that involved both man and woman. As before, Elizabeth remained steadfast in her convictions. And while the state legislature did not take any action on the women's proposal, the topic of divorce remained an issue of importance for Elizabeth the remainder of her life. 1860 also marked a presidential election year, and her husband Henry, Still a leading member of the republican party, Campaigned for the nominee, centrist newcomer Abraham Lincoln. Almost as soon as Lincoln was elected to the presidency, Southern states announced their intention to secede from the union, and the country waited with bated breath to see exactly how the test of wills would play out. When the first 10 inch mortar round hit Fort Sumter on April 12, 1861, they had their answer. The United States was at war with itself. In the midst of the noise, the president still had a country to run, and Henry Stanton was named the deputy collector for the port of New York. After he settled in, Elizabeth packed up the family in Seneca Falls and joined him, eventually establishing a new family home on the edge of Manhattan. Not exactly ready to give up activism, Elizabeth and Susan worked together to figure out their next move. And on May 14, 1863, they invited women to New York City to attend the first meeting of their women's National Loyal League. 1,000 women showed up, Coming from as far west as California to be part of the event which marked the first women's rights organization established by Susan and Elizabeth. Susan served as the chair and fellow activist Lucy Stone presided. And for her part, Elizabeth used the power of her voice to call on the president who had just issued the emancipation proclamation to go further, Writing, quote, we now ask you to finish the work by declaring that nowhere under our national flag shall motherhood of any race plead in vain for justice and protection. Of course, sticking to her roots, Elizabeth made sure to emphasize in her remarks black women stuck in bondage. The goal of their organization was to push congress to extend emancipation by sending 1 million petitions. Elizabeth made the endeavor a family affair. As petitions came in, she recruited her sons to help sort and bundle them by state. Creating a political organization of women that was intentionally focused and geared towards engaging in political debate made Elizabeth proud, and she remained unapologetic about her commitment to abolition or the idea that she should be involved in contemporary issues. She just because she was a woman. Lee's surrender at Appomattox not only ended the bloodiest and deadliest American conflict, It also presented a new opportunity. With the end of the civil War and the passage of the 13th Amendment, millions of newly freed black Americans now faced a new reality, and the country faced new questions. Could the United States, a nation that had just spent four years at war with itself, come together and build a truly multiracial democracy? And could that democracy include members of the fairer sex? Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony believed it could, and became early proponents of universal suffrage. Together, they pushed for dual recognition of both women and African Americans right to the franchise. And while there were some who had initially indicated support in concept and when it came time to throw their political power behind advancing the cause, Elizabeth and Susan found they were without allies. After all, famed abolitionist Wendell Phillips believed that pushing for black and female suffrage was going to be too politically difficult to secure victory and expressed concerns that doing so could jeopardize the abolitionist movement in its entirety. Trying to pacify Elizabeth, he explained that woman's time would come with his full support eventually, but that for the moment, it was time to focus on the freedmen. Likely feeling frustrated, if not sensing a bit of condescension, Elizabeth fired off a letter in response, writing partially quote, do you believe the African race is composed entirely of males? End quote. Elizabeth was worried that if activists did not band together and unify in their quest for universal suffrage and ensure that everyone received the same rights at the same time, it would become that much harder to gain support for the women's cause. As it turns out, she was not wrong. As Congress worked on the language of what eventually became the 14th amendment, Elizabeth and others zeroed in on the inclusion of the word male in section two, presumably included to prevent former confederates from denying freedmen the franchise while benefiting from increased representation in the House. There was no mistaking that this was also a deliberate choice. As explained by historian Ellen Carol dubois, quote, the time was long gone when person or citizen could be assumed to mean only men. Women's rights activists, steady press for women's political empowerment, had made sure of that. Keeping women's suffrage at bay now required making their exclusion from the franchise explicit. And so most drafts of the amendment specified male voters as the basis of representation. This displeased Elizabeth greatly, who remarked, that word male, it will take us a century at least to get it out again. Elizabeth pleaded with Congress to reconsider the language about gender, to no avail. Her frustrations likely reaching a fever pitch, Elizabeth's rhetoric took a darker, much more racist tone. Despite her years of training in the abolitionist movement and her dedication to the cause for nearly two decades, Elizabeth got into the bad habit of using racist language in Making her case for women's equality again from biographer and historian Ellen Carol Dubois. Quote. In these years, especially when angry or pessimistic about the prospect of women's rights, she evidenced a new habit of racist invective toward African American men and nativist resentment of immigrant men. Her speeches and statements often included racist tropes to describe men of color. And here's a listener content warning including phrases like Sambo to describe black Americans young tongue in place of Chinese immigrants and Hans in reference to Germans. While Elizabeth was not alone in degrading others, even Frederick Douglass had made questionable comments about Irish immigrants. Elizabeth made ways for how blunt and how public she was. Yet despite the tone deaf racist nativist comments that again were likely born out of frustration, Elizabeth's actions remained focused on trying to secure political rights for the many, not the few. To that end, in 1866, Elizabeth and Susan established the New York Equal Rights association, partnering with Frederick Douglass, who came on board to serve as vice president, even despite some of his friends recent racist comments. In a letter to his friend, Douglas joked, quote, I have made up my mind that if you can forgive me for being a Negro, I cannot do less than to forgive you for being a woman. End quote. The goal of their newly formed endeavor was to combine their women's rights efforts with the Anti Slavery Society to advocate for political rights for all. At the next women's rights convention in May 1866, the American Equal Rights association was formed, which formalized Elizabeth and Susan's desire to pursue universal political rights. Forming the American Equal Rights association was Elizabeth's attempt to make the promises of Reconstruction a reality not just for newly emancipated men, but for the women who had long been waiting in line for a chance at political freedom. The activism of the Equal Rights association did little to prevent Congress from ratifying the 14th Amendment with the inclusion of the gendered language, and it was a blow to the movement. In reaction, Elizabeth decided to throw her name into consideration for a congressional seat for the State of New York, a contest she did not win. Elizabeth's frustration over her lack of progress on women's equality while working with the Republicans led her into some questionable relationships, something I've covered in previous episodes, which I've linked in the show notes. Her anger and frustration over the movement's lack of progress only continued to grow during these years, and Elizabeth spent some time visiting family overseas as well as writing the history of the women's movement, a project she took on with her longtime collaborator Susan. There was so much material to cover that the history would end up requiring four separate volumes, three of which were written during Elizabeth's lifetime and turned into a real treasure for later historians. Upon returning to the United States, Elizabeth focused her attention on the religious subjugation of women, which did not win her any fans in the expanding suffrage movement and strained her relationship with her longtime friend and collaborator, Susan. Susan had taken on a larger role in the suffrage movement and was planning an international Council of women scheduled for 1888. The event brought together a number of women's organizations and was intended, among other things, to demonstrate just how much women had achieved. And yet Elizabeth remained focused on what still needed to be done and what she saw as the barriers to achieving true equality. As Elizabeth explained in her memoir, quote I began to read the commentators on the Bible and was surprised to see how little they had to say about the greatest factors in civilization. The mother of the race. And that little by no means complimentary. The more I read, the more keenly I felt the importance of convincing women that the Hebrew mythology had no special claim to a higher origin than that of the Greeks. The being far less attractive in style and less refined in sentiment, Its objectionable features would long ago have been apparent had they not been glossed over with the faith in their divine inspiration. For several months, I devoted all my time to biblical criticism and ecclesial history and found no explanation for the degraded status of women under all religions and in all the so called holy books. End quote. She put her findings together in the Woman's Bible, advocating for women to recognize the detrimental impact religion played in their quest for equality. However, the suffrage movement was taking a more conservative turn and Elizabeth's messaging was not entirely well received. Advancing in years, Elizabeth could not help but reflect on where the movement stood so many decades after she and others jumped into the fight, remarking, quote, the protracted struggle through which we have passed and our labors not yet crowned with victory seems to me sometimes like a painful dream in which one strives to run and yet stand still, incapable of escaping or meeting the impending change. End quote Elizabeth Cady Stanton died on October 26, 1902 at the age of 86, 17 years before Congress would pass the 19th Amendment and 18 years before it was ratified to become part of the United States Constitution. She spent six decades pushing her countrymen, pleading with them to recognize women as equal political citizens worthy of engaging in debate and making decisions about the future of the country. While Elizabeth did live to see the franchise extended to women in a handful of states, she did not live long enough to see her main goal, full federal recognition, come to pass. Elizabeth Cady Stanton spent her life pushing for the expansion of women's political rights and was not afraid to buck convention to do so. She was not a perfect activist, and she did not operate in a silo. She was one of many women who petitioned and demanded the men in power extend a helping hand to their cause. She benefited from proximity to power in a way that many other women did not, and she often fell back on racist tropes that took away from her otherwise powerful messages and commendable actions. Yet much of what she advocated for and spoke in favor of can resonate today, including this final quote that I'll leave you with a limited suffrage creates a privileged class and is based on the false idea that government is the natural arbiter of its citizens, while in fact it is the creature of their will. One final note before I sign off. As a reminder, July will be a special series of historical conversations as the country enters its semi quincentennial, which kicks off with an incredible conversation next week, so be sure to tune in. Thanks peeps. I'll see you next time. Thanks for sitting down with me as I explored this chapter of American history. If you liked what you heard, be sure to subscribe and share with your friends. I look forward to our next cup of coffee together.