History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I   By: Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1815-1902)

Edited by

ELIZABETH CADY STANTON, SUSAN B. ANTHONY, AND MATILDA JOSLYN GAGE.

Illustrated with Steel Engravings.

In Three Volumes.

VOL. I.

1848 1861.

"GOVERNMENTS DERIVE THEIR JUST POWERS FROM THE CONSENT OF THE GOVERNED."

[Illustration: FRANCES WRIGHT (with autograph).]

Second Edition.

Susan B. Anthony. Rochester, N. Y.: Charles Mann. London: 25 Henrietta Street, Covent Garden. Paris. G. Fischbacher, 33 Rue De Seine. 1889.

Copyright, 1881, by Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage.

Copyright, 1887, by Susan B. Anthony.

THESE VOLUMES

ARE

AFFECTIONATELY INSCRIBED

TO THE

Memory of

MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT, FRANCES WRIGHT, LUCRETIA MOTT, HARRIET MARTINEAU, LYDIA MARIA CHILD, MARGARET FULLER, SARAH AND ANGELINA GRIMKÉ, JOSEPHINE S. GRIFFING, MARTHA C. WRIGHT, HARRIOT K. HUNT, M.D., MARIANA W. JOHNSON, ALICE AND PHEBE CAREY, ANN PRESTON, M.D., LYDIA MOTT, ELIZA W. FARNHAM, LYDIA F. FOWLER, M.D., PAULINA WRIGHT DAVIS,

Whose Earnest Lives and Fearless Words, in Demanding Political Rights for Women, have been, in the Preparation of these Pages, a Constant Inspiration

TO

The Editors.

PREFACE.

In preparing this work, our object has been to put into permanent shape the few scattered reports of the Woman Suffrage Movement still to be found, and to make it an arsenal of facts for those who are beginning to inquire into the demands and arguments of the leaders of this reform. Although the continued discussion of the political rights of woman during the last thirty years, forms a most important link in the chain of influences tending to her emancipation, no attempt at its history has been made. In giving the inception and progress of this agitation, we who have undertaken the task have been moved by the consideration that many of oar co workers have already fallen asleep, and that in a few years all who could tell the story will have passed away.

In collecting material for these volumes, most of those of whom we solicited facts have expressed themselves deeply interested in our undertaking, and have gladly contributed all they could, feeling that those identified with this reform were better qualified to prepare a faithful history with greater patience and pleasure, than those of another generation possibly could.

A few have replied, "It is too early to write the history of this movement; wait until our object is attained; the actors themselves can not write an impartial history; they have had their discords, divisions, personal hostilities, that unfit them for the work." Viewing the enfranchisement of woman as the most important demand of the century, we have felt no temptation to linger over individual differences. These occur in all associations, and may be regarded in this case as an evidence of the growing self assertion and individualism in woman.

Woven with the threads of this history, we have given some personal reminiscences and brief biographical sketches. To the few who, through ill timed humility, have refused to contribute any of their early experiences we would suggest, that as each brick in a magnificent structure might have had no special value alone on the road side, yet, in combination with many others, its size, position, quality, becomes of vital consequence; so with the actors in any great reform, though they may be of little value in themselves; as a part of a great movement they may be worthy of mention even important to the completion of an historical record.