Document 8

An excerpt from Address on Womans Rights by Elizabeth Cady

Stanton, September 1848.

I should feel exceedingly diffident to appear before you wholly unused as I

am to public speaking, were I not nerved by a sense of right and dutydid I
not feel that the time had fully come for the question of woman's wrongs to be
laid before the publicdid I not believe that woman herself must do this work
for woman alone can understand the height and the depth, the length and the
breadth of her own degradation and woe. Man cannot speak for usbecause he
has been educated to believe that we differ from him so materially, that he
cannot judge of our thoughts, feelings and opinions by his own. Moral beings
can only judge of others by themselvesthe moment they give a different
nature to any of their own kind they utterly fail. The drunkard was hopelessly
lost until it was discovered that he was governed by the same laws of mind as
the sober man. Then with what magic power, by kindness and love, was he
raised from the slough of despond and placed rejoicing on high land. Let a man
once settle the question that woman does not think and feel like himself and he
may as well undertake to judge of the amount of intellect and sensation of any
of the animal creation as of woman's nature. He can know but little with
certainty, and that but by observation.
Summary: In Address on Womans Rights, Elizabeth is speaking to a
crowd of men and women about womens rights and that women
should be treated with the same respect as men. This document helps
show how the ideas Elizabeth Cady Stanton was implementing, later
helped change society.
Pov: As a womens rights activist, Elizabeth Cady Stanton would use
her own personal experience, as well as the experience of those
around her of being mistreated to be giving the speeches like the one
above.

http://ecssba.rutgers.edu/docs/ecswoman1.html