of declaration and aims, and she had the satisfaction of knowing that the convention, ridiculed throughout the Union, was the starting point of the woman's rights movement, which is now no longer a subject of ridicule. Judge Cady, hearing that his daughter was the author of the audacious resolution, "That it is the duty of the women of this country to secure for themselves their sacred right to the elective franchise," imagined that she had gone crazy, and he journeyed from Johnstown to Seneca Falls, to learn whether or not her brilliant mind had lost its balance. He tried to reason her out of her position but she remained unshaken in her faith that her position was right.
The practice of going before a legislature to present the claim of woman's cause has become quite common, but in the early days of Mrs. Stanton's career it was considered unusual and sensational. And yet, with the single exception of Mrs. Lucy Stone, a noble and gifted woman, to whom her country-women owe affectionate gratitude, not merely for eloquence that charmed thousands of ears, but for her practical efforts in abolishing laws oppressive to her sex, I believe that Mrs. Stanton appeared oftener before state legislatures than any of her co-laborers. She repeatedly addressed the legislature of New York at Albany and on these occasions was always honored by the presence of a brilliant audience, and never failed to speak with dignity and ability. In 1854, when she first addressed the New York legislature on the rights of married women, she said, "Yes, gentlemen, we the daughters of the Revolutionary heroes of '76, demand at your hands the redress of our grievances, a revision of your state constitution and a new code of laws." At the close of her grand and glowing argument, a lawyer who had listened to it and who knew and revered Mrs. Stanton's father, shook hands with the orator and said, "Madam, it was as fine a production as if it had been made and pronounced by Judge Cady, himself." This, to the daughter's ears, was sufficiently high praise.
