Tuesday, July 22, 2014

Elizabeth Cady Stanton to Susan B. Anthony, December 23, 1859

Seneca Falls, December 23, 1859.

Dear Susan, — Where are you? Since a week ago last Monday, I have looked for you every day. I had the washing put off, we cooked a turkey, I made a pie in the morning, sent my first-born to the depot and put clean aprons on the children, but lo! you did not come. Nor did you soften the rough angles of our disappointment by one solitary line of excuse. And it would do me such great good to see some reformers just now. The death of my father,1 the worse than death of my dear Cousin Gerrit,2 the martyrdom of that grand and glorious John Brown — all this conspires to make me regret more than ever my dwarfed womanhood. In times like these, everyone should do the work of a full-grown man. When I pass the gate of the celestial city and good Peter asks me where I would sit, I shall say, “Anywhere, so that I am neither a negro nor a woman. Confer on me, good angel, the glory of white manhood so that henceforth, sitting or standing, rising up or lying down, I may enjoy the most unlimited freedom.” Good night.
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1 Judge Cady became suddenly blind in April, 1859, and died on October 31st.

2 In October John Brown made his famous raid on Harper's Ferry. On November 2 he was found guilty and condemned to be hung. This tragedy unsettled for a time the mind of his friend and supporter Gerrit Smith.

SOURCE: Theodore Stanton & Hariot Stanton Blatch, Editors, Elizabeth Cady Stanton as Revealed in Her Letters, Diary and Reminiscences, Volume 2, p. 74-5

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