Essay Analysis: Seneca Falls Keynote Address By Elizabeth Cady Stanton

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Analysis: Elizabeth Cady Stanton: Seneca Falls Keynote Address On July 19,1848, in front of 300 women and 40 men, Elizabeth Cady Stanton delivered a speech on women’s rights. In her speech Stanton accurately displays her distinctive ability to influence public opinion by appropriating ideas from the Bible, establishing her credibility, appealing to the audience’s logic, and invoking the emotional aspects of women’s suffrage in this era, as well as repetition. The Christian values shared by Stanton is emphasized through allusions. “The same religious enthusiasm that nerved Joan of Arc to her work nerves us to ours. In every generation God calls some men and women for the utterance of truth, a heroic action, and our work today is the fulfilling of what has long since been foretold by the Prophet—Joel 2:28: “And it shall come to pass afterward, that I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh; and …show more content…

She establishes credibility and states logistics through the general truth that all white men can vote,” All white men in this country have the same rights” but women cannot. The right is ours. The question now is: how shall we get possession of what rightfully belongs to us? We should not feel so sorely grieved if no man who had not attained the full stature of a Webster, Clay, Van Buren, or Gerrit Smith could claim the right of the elective franchise. But to have drunkards, idiots, horse-racing, rum-selling rowdies, ignorant foreigners, and silly boys fully recognized, while we ourselves are thrust out from all the rights that belong to citizens, it is too grossly insulting to the dignity of woman to be longer quietly submitted to. The right is ours. Have it, we must. Use it, we will.” This statement is meant to anger the women in the audience, to make them realize that men are given more rights than they are although women have better qualities than most