Elizabeth Cady Stanton on the Faults of Political Inequality

Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1815-1902) was a leading American social activist who, alongside Susan B. Anthony, spearheaded the early women’s rights movement in the 19th century. Stanton was the author of the Declaration of Sentiments, the landmark document signed at the Seneca Falls Convention of 1848. Despite all her work toward obtaining suffrage, Stanton died 18 years before women were granted the right to vote.

“To deny political equality is to rob the ostracised of all self-respect; of credit in the market place; of recompense in the world of work; of a voice among those who make and administer the law; a choice in the jury before whom they are tried, and in the judge who decides their punishment.”

Source: Solitude of Self, speech before Congress (1892)