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HISTORY OF WOMAN SUFFRAGE.
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.
To be historians of a reform in which we have been among the chief
actors, has its points of embarrassment as well as advantage. Those
who fight the battle can best give what all readers like to know--the
impelling motives to action; the struggle in the face of opposition;
the vexation under ridicule; and the despair in success too long
deferred. Moreover, there is an interest in history written from a
subjective point of view, that may compensate the reader in this case
for any seeming egotism or partiality he may discover. As an
autobiography is more interesting than a sketch by another, so is a
history written by its actors, as in both cases we get nearer the soul
of the subject.
We have finished our task, and we hope the contribution we have made
may enable some other hand in the future to write a more complete
history of "the most momentous reform that has yet been launched on
the world--the first organized protest against the injustice which has
brooded over the character and destiny of one-half the human race."
CONTENTS.
PAGE
CHAPTER I.
PRECEDING CAUSES.